JOHN MALKOVICH

I don't need to be liked.

I don't want a trillion-dollar empire to run.

I think 1973 was the nadir of fashion. When you watch the coverage from that era, you're struck by the astonishing ugliness of the clothes.

Quite often - a lot of the work I had done had been extensively with women. Most especially in the theater, but also quite often in the movies. That has its own delights, and maybe pitfalls too.

I don't mind tracksuits. At the track.

I probably have more female friends than any man I've ever met. What I like about them is that almost always they're generally mentally tougher, and they're better listeners, and they're more capable of surviving things.

Anybody doing something brings something to it.

My life before children I don't really remember. I've heard references to it, but I really don't remember.

I'm not a Method actor. I don't believe acting should be psychodrama. I look within myself and see what I can find to play the role with. If I'm playing a blind man, I don't go around blindfolded for days. A lot of good actors would, but I don't go in for that very much. I like to just make it up as I go along.

I never really did a western western.

I like to direct movies, but I don't like to goof around for eight years talking about it.

We have a tendency to think everyone's idiotic and everyone's only doing something idiotic, and the world is controlled by a not-so-secret group of morons. There's great truth in that, I suppose, but then it's also not true.

Fashion is chaotic, and it can be an aggravation, too, but it is at its best when it allows you to express yourself.

My father was a very contradictory man.

If you're too smart it can limit you because you spend so much time thinking that you don't do anything.

You can't take a play someone has directed and do whatever you want with it.

I only have two rules for my newly born daughter: she will dress well and never have sex.

Nothing you do particularly matters. But I'm not sure that's a great excuse for doing it poorly.

You have to do things people see or you don't get to do anything.

I don't like things too overstated in the cut or too perfect.

I wouldn't describe myself as lacking in confidence, but I would just say that - the ghosts you chase you never catch.

Well, I design costumes because I started with the theater in Chicago, but somehow a few lines just sort of fell to me to do it. And I studied it in school and I always liked it.

I think when I went to psychoanalysis, I actually believed that people said what they meant. This was my whole problem.

A dog that has rabies probably will do things it wouldn't do if it didn't have rabies. But that doesn't change the fact that it has rabies.

I prefer to conduct my life based on how I treat people.