"It made me consider time differently, because my year ends when the year ends. I blame my birth date for being hung up about time. I'm not any more, but I used to be anxious to - just wanting to do things. That sense of wanting to get on with it."

Val on his dad, Eugene Kilmer: "very eccentric, extreme in his personality, elusive, powerful but shy."

Val on his mom, Gladys Leach: "a full-time mom, and a darned good one."

"Now that I'm a parent, I, of course, respect how they (his parents) raised us much more. I really appreciate that they were encouraging for whatever we wanted to get into in a way that made us more open-minded."

"My older brother was the class clown, my younger brother was wildly creative, and I was shy. But I liked performing. It was satisfying."

"I think there can be a hole in your life when someone you love dies, but it doesn't have to damage you. The opportunity I took from my little brother's passing was to see that all the talents and qualities contained in his unique body existed in the world. My testimony as to what he meant to me was to try to find those qualities in myself, to respect them and hallow them in the way I do him. But I didn't become somebody else because Wesley died. Instead, I saw really clearly what the impact of a life could be."

"That (living next door to Roy Rogers) was great fun. Trigger was stuffed in the recreation room, where you could see him through the curtains, and Roy's Cadillac was suede throughout with inlaid silver dollars all over it. The car had saddles for bucket seats, a Winchester for a steering wheel and giant horns on the hood.

It was probably the car Roy rode in for parades, but it was also his personal vehicle. You'd see it at the market."

"We lived on the edge of Los Angeles, and it was still wonderful country then. L.A. was once really and truly Shangri-la. An hour away from where we're standing, there's every kind of terrain that exists in the world."

"I had trouble with tests. I'm spiritually dyslexic: If I'm interested in something I can remember it forever; if not, I have to find a trick."

"Juilliard taught me that there is no FINISHED in art; it's never done. It's never JUST RIGHT."

"We should all live where we feel the best. Where we pray the best. Where we have the strongest relation to life."

"My children don't have a nanny, and I love it. My daughter has a pony. All three of us ride together. They love it so much that I can't get them off their horses. They're fearless."