Robert De Niro - Personal Quotes

"The talent is in the choices."

"It's important not to indicate. People don't try to show their feelings, they try to hide them."

"I don't like to watch my own movies - I fall asleep in my own movies."

"Don't talk it (shooting a scene) away, do it!"

"Some people say that drama is easy, and comedy is hard. Not true. I've been making comedies the last couple years, and it's nice. When you make a drama, you spend all day beating a guy to death with a hammer, or what have you. Or, you have to take a bite out of somebody's face. On the other hand, with a comedy, you yell at Billy Crystal for an hour, and you go home."

"I think Hollywood has a class system. The actors are like the inmates, but the truth is they're running the asylum. You've got to look at the whole studio structure. There's these guys. We call them suits. They have the power to okay a film. They're like your parents, going, 'We have the money.' But at the same time they say to us actors, 'We love you. We can't do without you.' You know, I've been around a long time. I've seen the suits run the asylum. I think I can do it as good or even better. Let me try it. That's why I have TriBeCa." --Chicago Sun- Times, January 8, 1998

I go to Paris, I go to London, I go to Rome, and I always say, "There's no place like New York. It's the most exciting city in the world now. That's the way it is. That's it."

"I've never been one of those actors who has touted myself as a fascinating human being. I had to decide early on wether I was to be an actor or a personality."

"The whole thing is for younger people who are sexy and youthful." - on acting

"The characters that I play are real. They are real so they have as much right to be portrayed as any other characters. There are other characters I have played, other than those ones that have been called stereotypes or whatever. So." (His thoughts on the 'mobster' characters he portrays in a lot of his movies)

"People treat me with a bit too much reverence. Look at Dustin Hoffman. I always envy the way he can speak and be smart and funny and so on. I just can't do that."