James Caan Quotes

I just spent a lot of time on 'ER' for that eight years. I also started working when I was 16, so by the time I left 'ER,' I was 40 years old, I had this incredible experience, my wife had this great company, we had four kids, it was like, 'Let's go to New York and live for a while and make that the priority.'

My kids are not that interested in my movie career, by the way. My son, in particular, never talks about it. He just wants me as his dad.

I never intended on moving to 'The Good Wife' permanently, but in terms of a next move and something to do to make myself feel good, this was a great opportunity.

Becoming an entrepreneur was the furthest thing from my mind. I actually had an identity crisis when I realized I had become one.

It was just this interesting, my first, the first time you hear your child in any way criticise you. It's the worst review of your life and it's really relieving to find out that they don't know what they're saying.

I went away when I was 9 to a ballet school. I thought I wanted to be a dancer, but eight years of ballet cured me of that.

Growing up, I actually wanted to be a professional baseball player instead of a radio DJ. Believe it or not.

I know this may come as a shock to most of you, but I've decided to quit acting. I will not be auditioning for anything anymore, and if I get offered something like a role in a movie or a commercial or something, I will graciously turn it down. It's been great, but its just not for me anymore.

I showed up in October 1946, part of an early surge that would become a great nationwide baby boom. My sister Kathy was born a year later.

I retired simply because I didn't have the passion and motivation anymore; I was tired. At the time I thought, 'Well, I had a great time, there is the end.' At some moment, there is the right time to call it an end.

Retiring was scary and it was tough to give up gymnastics, but so many great opportunities have come from it that I never expected.

I just thought that I had had my fill for a while and wanted to have a family. My husband was moving to Chicago for his job. And so I went along. And it was a great thing that I did.

My daughter couldn't care less about me being famous. She finds it revolting and, like a lot of teenagers, is virtually allergic to me. That started at 12 and hasn't gone anywhere yet.

It had been an odd, kind of rough year for me when 'CSI' ended.

People ask me about the decision to transition from fashion to 'Rookie' magazine. But it wasn't a decision. I was 14, and my interests were changing.

I always likened retirement to falling off a cliff, and then you have to kind of brush yourself off.

I had prepared myself for the second half of my life [to be] filled with other passions that don't include being in front of the camera. And then all of a sudden I got more work and more work and more work. And I went, "Well maybe things have shifted." And I think they have.

This isn't the Democratic party of our fathers and grandfathers. This is the party of Woodstock hippies. I was at Woodstock--I built the stage. And when everything fell apart, and people were fighting for peanut butter sandwiches, it was the National Guard who came in and saved the same people who were protesting them. So when Hillary Clinton a few years ago wanted to build a Woodstock memorial, I said it should be a statue of a National Guardsman feeding a crying hippie.

It is a great moment in life when a father sees a son grow taller than he or reach farther.

More and more I find I'm really impressed with how much my son knows and how much he thinks like me. But he never would agree with me and he never would listen to me on anything.

In terms of you happiness, in terms of the matters that make you proud or sad, nothing-I repeat, nothing-will have so profound an effect on you as the way your children turn out. You will either rejoice and boast of their accomplishments or you will weep, head in hands, bereft and forlorn, if they become a disappointment or an embarrassment to you.

I don't know how you feel about old age... but in my case I didn't even see it coming. It hit me from the rear.

My parents were my heroes and my role models. So I thought long and hard over decisions that I would make because I never wanted to disappoint them and break their hearts.

I love learning, so it's definitely something I could see myself doing when I'm 30 or something. I always wanted to go for music production and health and psychology. But my whole life, I was in a gym for eight hours a day. I'm ready to be young and have fun.