John G. Avildsen Quotes

There'll never be a 'Rocky IV.' You gotta call a halt.

I developed a mania for Fitzgerald - by the time I'd graduated from high school I'd read everything he'd written. I started with 'The Great Gatsby' and moved on to 'Tender Is the Night,' which just swept me away. Then I read 'This Side of Paradise,' his novel about Princeton - I literally slept with that book under my pillow for two years.

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.'

I'd seen all the great entertainers by the time I was 14 or 15. My mother was artistic. My father was a bookmaker, so he had access to all those nightclubs, and he was smitten by certain artists, and we would go see them. We'd see comics like Sid Caesar and Milton Berle - those kind of artists - many of whom I worked with later in my life.

I became an air display pilot. I used to teach it. I was an examiner for a few years as well. It was great fun. I would still be doing it now if pretty much everyone I knew who was doing it hadn't died. In the first team I joined there were six people in it. By the time I stopped, there was only me and one other left - everyone else had died.

I watched the Tyson-Holyfield fight with Stallone. I remember when Tyson bit him, Sly looked at me and said, 'I think he bit him'. I said, 'I think you're right, Rock.'

By the time you have your protagonist attempting to assassinate the Pope, you've sort of signaled that everything is on the table.

I hold Bond dear to my heart. I've traveled the world as an ambassador for that character, and I had a bloody great time doing it.

I definitely felt by the time I got to grad school - which was a great experience - I was like, 'What's the difference between the teachers and the students? Why are the teachers teachers if they want to be acting?' It didn't make sense to me anymore. It's not like you learn how to set a broken bone and you get the stamp of approval.

I have a feeling when I'm 80 years old I'm going to get a phone call: There's going to be another Rocky.

By the time I finished comedy, I was really burnt out of it. I had had enough. I don't really have a strong desire to prove myself in that area, or to go back to it in any great way.

I had a coach that was not a great player, but he taught with kids and juniors so that by the time he was 50 he was great. He helped me make the top 5 in the world and yet he wasn't a great player himself.

It was 1966 by the time I started taking pictures seriously and books, newspapers and magazines of the time were full of great pictures that helped to inspire me.

There's one great script that hit my desk that I didn't change at all, and that was True Romance.

I was shooting in the low 70s and 60s by the time I was 12. That's the great thing about golf. It doesn't matter how old or young you are. If you're 90 and can shoot a good score, people will want to play with you.

By the time I got to be director of product management at Thomas-Conrad, I was in a better negotiating position, as I had accumulated more accomplishments and gained a reputation for having a great work ethic.

It's almost an impossible thing to get a movie made that is written by two actors who want to star in it, when no one knows who they are. The only time it happened that I know of was when Sylvester Stallone did it in 'Rocky.'

I grew up watching 'Rocky.' I still love that movie, the original one.

I'm obsessed with 'Rocky.' We went 13 times to the theater.

I watched Sly Stallone and the 'Rocky' movies over and over again. They were fantastic.

I have watched 'Rocky' many times.

The producer and writers [ of X-Men: Apocalypse ] were kind of feeling me out with, "Are you okay with the fact that you die?" and I was, like, "Yes." That's something that people would talk about, so I thought it was cool that I died. Havok was in three movies and then I get to be remembered.

Rocky is a very predictable movie. The ending is a foregone conclusion.

Training and working in Philadelphia is a very unusual situation because that city does believe that Rocky is real. No one calls me Sylvester, it's Rocky.

I was going to play in First Blood, but I suggested to changing it and I dropped out. I said to [Silvester] Stallone, 'You know, I almost stopped you from making millions of dollars,' because in my suggestion, I killed his character at the end of the picture .