Mickey Rourke

“I'm the worst surfer in California. My balance is off from boxing.”

“I spent a lot of years trying to beat the system and, in the end, the system kicked my behind good.”

“As time goes by and you're getting older and stuff like that - getting older sucks. You know, I hear all this crap about, 'Oh, you can age with dignity.' Really?”

“The ladies love me and I love the ladies!”

“Bounty hunters these days - because everything is so sophisticated with computers and surveillance, it doesn't have to be a one-man-army-type guy who goes in and kicks a door down.”

“I did think for many, many years that because of my ability I could beat the system. And I was wrong.”

“It was the most fun I've ever had on a movie. It was one of the happiest times in my life. I was living in New York, and I really enjoyed acting at the time. Also, it's funny because that was also the time when I went downhill.”

“When you lose everything, and I mean everything, you sit there in this empty room in the dark, and the only person who can get you out is you.”

“I don't mind getting punched in the nose by a guy standing in front of me. It's getting stabbed in the back that I can't handle.”

“I was very immature when I was young, and for me there was no balance. Everything was just all or nothing.”

“People need medicine and they need therapists.”

“Years ago I realized that maybe I made mistake, politically, when I turned a lot of that stuff down. I would go off to obscure places and make movies that six people went to see.”

“I started to shortcircuit because I had high aspirations for the film. I never told anybody that.”

“I trained like an animal, but the thing is focus and concentration. When the bell rings it's like when the little red light goes on over the camera. And I can usually nail my lines on the first or second take because I'm right there.”

“I grew up in a gym in Miami, the one where Muhammad Ali trained. I had 142 amateur fights and lost three.”

“Comeback is a good word, man.”

“I don't care what Tom Cruise says about therapy.”

“I spent so long studying really hard to become a fine actor, but threw it all away because I got the adulation and the fame so easily.”

“In Hollywood, you're always playing roles... It's like going through the motions. But in real life, it's like, you gotta take care of business. It's not just the movies.”

“I always knew I'd accomplish something very special - like robbing a bank perhaps.”