(From a taped announcement concerning his having symptoms of Alzheimer's disease): "For an actor, there is no greater loss than the loss of his audience. I can part the Red Sea, but I can't part with you, which is why I won't exclude you from this stage in my life. ... For now, I'm not changing anything. I'll insist on work when I can; the doctors will insist on rest when I must. If you see a little less spring to my step, if your name fails to leap to my lips, you'll know why. And if I tell you a funny story for the second time, please laugh anyway." "Sam is the only person I've ever physically threatened on a set." - On working with director Sam Peckinpah. "If you need a ceiling painted, a chariot race run, a city besieged, or the Red Sea parted, you think of me." "You can take my rifle ... when you pry it from my cold dead hands!" After hearing an unkind remark made about his condition by George Clooney, nephew of Rosemary Clooney: "It's funny how class can skip a generation, isn't it?" "Alexander is the easiest kind of movie to do badly." - On why he turned down Alexander the Great "Affirmative action is a stain on the American soul." "It was one of my best recent years. And now I'm not drinking at all. I wasn't slurring my words. I wasn't falling over, but I realized it had become an addiction for me. And in my profession, it's a terrible flaw to fall into. I believe I did it in time." [On conquering his alcohol addiction in 2000] "Political correctness is tyranny with manners." "The Internet is for lonely people. People should live." "What cannot be cured must be endured." (From his final televised interview in December 2002, regarding his recent diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease) "I've played cardinals and cowboys, kings and quarterbacks, presidents and painters, cops and con-men." "It's ridiculous for an actor that good to keep playing Las Vegas hoods." - on Robert De Niro "People have been asking me for thirty-five years if I was losing jobs because of my conservative politics. I've never felt that was the case." "Here's my credo. There are no good guns, There are no bad guns. A gun in the hands of a bad man is a bad thing. Any gun in the hands of a good man is no threat to anyone, except bad people." "I don't know the man - never met him, never even spoken to him. But I feel sorry for George Clooney - one day he may get Alzheimer's disease. I served my country in World War II. I survived that - I guess I can survive some bad words from this fellow." "There is no duty more noble than that which has called you across the world in defense of freedom. Yours is a mission of hope and humanity for the oppressed. Rest assured that while pretend-patriots talk of supporting you, even as they condemn your noble cause, an unwavering vast majority of Americans share and take pride in your mission. You represent all that is good and right about America and are the true face of American patriotism. You walk in those same righteous footsteps of all those patriots who, before you, fought to preserve liberty for all. Our prayers and our personal gratitude are with you and your families. May God Bless You, Charlton and Lydia Heston." - Message sent to the US troops in Iraq, April 2003 "Clergymen tend to be unreliable and pompous figures. Seldom Jewish rabbis, less often Catholic priests, but Protestant ministers tend to be ... not really very admirable. Not necessarily evil, but silly. And wrong, of course." - Talking about modern Hollywood's stereotypical portrayals of religious figures "There's a special excitement in playing a man who made a hole in history large enough to be remembered centuries after he died." "If you can't make a career out of two de Milles, you'll never do it." "After spending all of last winter in armour it's a great relief to wear costume that bends." - After completing El Cid "The minute you feel you have given a faultless performance is the time to get out." "I have played three presidents, three saints and two geniuses. If that doesn't create an ego problem, nothing does." "I've been killed often, on film, the stage, and the television tube. Studios insist the audience doesn't like this. It's been my experience that it makes them unhappy, but that's not the same thing. In any event, they often attend those undertakings where I come to a violent end even more enthusiastically than they do those where I survive. There may be a message for me somewhere there." "I can't remember a time when I didn't want to be an actor." "He was a wonderful, forthright and honorable man." - Following the death of Gary Cooper in 1961 "She was a great broad, in all the meaning of the word." - Following the death of Barbara Stanwyck in 1990 "It's hard living up to Moses." "It is essential that gun owners unite in an active, growing force capable of flexing great muscle as the next millennium commences." "The great roles are always Shakespearean."