There are a few directors around who I have some excitement about spending my $7 at the theatre watching their movies.

- Sean Penn

Well, I think that when you direct a movie or write it. And in the case of the two movies I did, I wrote and directed, they occupy a special place for you.

- Sean Penn

Love is a mess, at best, and I figure it can be very real in spite of all the things people try to attach to it.

- Sean Penn

Yeah, I had a tremendous time shooting in Nebraska. I like that state a lot, all over it.

- Sean Penn

I think life's an irrational obsession.

- Sean Penn

I live in the energy and rhythm of the character. To some degree, that's true of every actor I've worked with.

- Sean Penn

Oh, I'm a big-mouth. I said a lot of things.

- Sean Penn

I've never really been one to get what they call stage fright so much.

- Sean Penn

I think we all have light and dark inside us.

- Sean Penn

My favorite thing to do is not act - it's that simple.

- Sean Penn

Turning one's back on stardom might be the highest form of common sense. One that I would aspire to be more complete with.

- Sean Penn

I like to believe that love is a reciprocal thing, that it can't really be felt, truly, by one.

- Sean Penn

When you act in a film, you're inevitably surrounded by people you didn't choose, right down to the set painter. I like being able to pick the family I'm waking up to in the morning that's going to make this group effort to tell a story that applies to what's interesting to me at that stage in my life.

- Sean Penn

When I buy a Nikon camera, I have no tolerance for the instructions. I'm ready to make some mistakes using it and get some bad pictures back until I've figured it out for myself.

- Sean Penn

Craft comes into acting later rather than sooner. I was somebody who had to learn through a process - a natural actor doesn't need to.

- Sean Penn

I can always see light in any situation. It's just the way I'm made.

- Sean Penn

In school, I was a genius of the year preceding the year I was in, every year.

- Sean Penn

There's a lot of mediocrity being celebrated, and a lot of wonderful stuff being ignored or discouraged.

- Sean Penn

We've let the blade of our innocence dull over time, and it's only in innocence that you find any kind of magic, any kind of courage.

- Sean Penn

Anger can be a problem, but it has tremendous potential, too. It's just figuring out what to do with it.

- Sean Penn