Affleck: "I've learned to think, I may succeed or fail, but I'm going to do so on the merit of my own instincts."

Affleck: "I have a lot of influences. I like to sit down with the cinematographer a month before, and we'll watch pieces of 20 or 30 movies. You're basically the sum of all the experiences you've ever had, and they're sort of shaken up in you and reproduced in the things you create, and that includes seeing movies."

Affleck: "There's a lot of crazy, weird people out there. It's an ugly world."

Affleck: "The one benefit of having done all kinds of movies as an actor is, you learn the pros and cons of being tempted to do a really big movie because it costs a lot of money."

Affleck: "I'm human, just like anybody else."

Affleck: "When I look up at the screen and see myself I always have to laugh. Not because I think I'm doing a horrible job, quite the contrary, I just feel it's so surreal to feel like one person can entertain so many at one time."

Affleck: "I feel like fame is wasted on me."

Affleck: "As an actor, you can steer a scene in another direction by playing it a little differently. And honestly? I like being an actor, and I want to keep having a career."

Affleck: "Narcissism is the part of my personality that I am the least proud of, and I certainly don't like to see it highlighted in everybody else I meet."

Affleck: "I didn't always want to direct. I just liked the idea of it. If a friend was making a short and needed someone who knew screen direction, I would jump in. It would be horrible, but it led to a short, then another, and another. It was like student films."

Affleck: "I'm not the most loathsome man in the world. I've dropped to number nine."

Affleck: "I'm not the type of guy who enjoys one-night stands. It leaves me feeling very empty and cynical. It's not even fun sexually. I need to feel something for the woman and entertain the vain hope that it may lead to a relationship."

Affleck: "Nobody I represent is pretending to be the pope or a role model for young people. People have to live their lives."

Affleck: "Anxiety is a kind of fuel that activates the fight-or-flight part of the brain in me. It makes sure that a velociraptor isn't around the corner and that you do as much as you possibly can to survive. Because Hollywood has a lot in common with 'Jurassic Park' and its primeval-dinosaur universe."

Affleck: "God help me if I ever do another movie with an explosion in it."

Affleck: "I like acting for myself as a director. I act and I know that I'll have a chance to have some say in what gets used and that I'll be able to give myself enough takes and be on the same page as myself about how the scene should play."

Affleck: "Not that it entirely matters: There is a perception that all actors make their movies. A lot of people assume you're responsible."

Affleck: "I've finally learnt how to say, 'No comment'. To appear in the tabloids is a real learning curve and a steep one at that. You had better learn quick or you get burnt."

Affleck: "I grew up in a home environment where I wasn't getting esteem for anything I did."

Affleck: "I lived with this tremendous fear of failure because my father was a playwright and a director, and I think he did a couple of things as a child as an actor as well, and he... he failed, basically."

Affleck: "Marriage hasn't been my thing. But gay people, knock yourselves out!"