"Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean." "What makes Superman a hero is not that he has power, but that he has the wisdom and the maturity to use the power wisely. From an acting point of view, that's how I approached the part." "A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles." Talking about Robin Williams, in the hospital shortly after the accident: "There was this guy wearing a blue scrub hat and a yellow gown and with a Russian accent, being some insane Russian doctor... I laughed for the first time, and I knew that life was going to be okay." "I've seen first hand how Superman actually transforms people's lives.  I have seen children dying of brain tumors who wanted as their last request to be able to talk to me, and have gone to their graves with a peace brought on by knowing that their belief in this kind of character is intact.  I've seen that Superman really matters.  They're connecting with something very basic: the ability to overcome obstacles, the ability to persevere, the ability to understand difficulty and to turn your back on it." "I asked Sean Connery on how to avoid being typecast and he said, 'First you have to be good enough that they ask you to play it again and again.'" On making sequels: "You know, when you make sequels, they have to be better each time. And you have to spend the money. I remember on Superman II, we once went down to St. Lucia in the Caribbean from Pinewood - took a whole crew to get a shot of Superman picking a flower by a stream. And we had just been to Norway to get some shots of him in the snow fields. All that was scaled down by the producers of Superman IV, and I think the film looks ersatz as a result." "Siegel and Shuster created a piece of American mythology. It was my privilege to be the onscreen custodian of the character in the '70s and '80s. There will be many interpretations of Superman, but the original character created by two teenagers in the '30s will last forever." On director Richard Lester's filming of Superman III: "[Richard Lester] was always looking for a gag - sometimes to the point where the gags involving Richard Pryor went over the top. I mean, I didn't think that his going off the top of a building, on skis with a pink tablecloth around his shoulders, was particularly funny." On the weight training he did for the first Superman film: "I actually thought I was in pretty good shape before, but by the time we were done, I felt like I was ready to take on Muhammad Ali!" Your body is not who you are. The mind and spirit transcend the body. From an interview three months before the release of the third Superman film: "Look, I've flown, I've become evil, loved, stopped and turned the world backward, I've faced my peers, I've befriended children and small animals, and I've rescued cats from trees. What else is there left for Superman to do that hasn't been done?" From a Barbara Walters interview a few months prior to his death: "I am getting older and time is ticking. The more time goes by the more I feel a sense of urgency and I can accept anything except for complacency." "Hollywood needs to do more. Let's continue to take risks. Let's tackle the issues. In many ways our film community can do it better than anyone else." On his post-accident role in Rear Window: "I was worried that only acting with my voice and my face, I might not be able to communicate effectively enough to tell the story. But I was surprised to find that if I really concentrated and just let the thoughts happen, that they would read on my face." "The key to success is letting the relationships in your life grow to the highest levels they possibly can... not putting yourself first in life and remembering that the more you give away, the more you have." Speaking about the reshoots of the second Superman film after changing directors: "It was usually done whenever a set doubled or we had a problem with expensive actors being available. I remember we did many scenes from the Daily Planet, if not all of them, while we were doing Part One. So those were pretty much in the bank. Gene Hackman, to the extend that he was in Part Two, was also done while he was around for Part One. I don't remember that he came back again." On the famous fight scene in the second Superman film: "The Salkinds wanted to make a splash. Their vision was really big. I remember much of that as being fun. The strong wind blowing the cars around, from the three baddies with their super breath, that was all staged by Dick Lester. And it had an element of humor to it, so it was fun for us to think of gags." "So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable." [On Superman's enduring popularity]: "He's a friend. Everybody needs a friend. That's why he's still here."