A really great actor, in a lucky performance, can transform himself or herself. I’ve seen actors do that. But often it’s a mechanical transformation, which isn’t as interesting, and you’ve got to be careful how...

On the stage, the characters express themselves more through words than images. So the arguments of the characters and the tension between characters – words have to be used to express that, and I love...

I never thought about my image. It interests me that there are people who do, that they seem to be methodical about it. Maybe things would have gone differently for me in some ways if...

I used to be a Catholic. I left because I object to conversion by concussion. If you don’t agree with what they teach, you get clobbered over the head until you do. All that does...

You’d better take that wine back. It’s a little off.

Blind dates are treacherous. You don’t know who this person is. You wonder, ‘Should I call my grandma during coffee to get out of this?’

I used to be an amateur inventor when I was a kid; I’m always inventing something.

Any play is hard to write, and plays are getting harder and harder to get on the stage.

The idea that the brain is not fully formed until you are almost 30 years old has already been introduced, and the Supreme Court already has based two rulings on it.

You can’t be aware of everything. You’d fall down the stairs if you were aware of every intricate thing involved in going down stairs.

You wouldn’t want to be called a sell-out by selling a product. Selling out was frowned on, whereas now you can major in it at business school.

The President never intends to get into any kind of war situation. He gets carried away by events.

I think I look better in a suit than a loincloth. So that may define some of the parts I play.

No one can replace a unique person like Peter.

No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle and good, without the world being better for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness.

The one thing I think I’ve noticed about shows that are supposed to be funny on television is that they’ve sort of become routinized, so there’s an awful lot of mannerisms and joke lines that...

I sat next to a young woman on a plane once who bombarded me for five hours with how she had decided to be born again and so should I. I told her I was...

I was brought up as a Catholic, and I’m no longer a Catholic. I don’t talk about my beliefs too much in public probably because I feel very strongly that it’s something personal – more...

Never Have Your Dog Stuffed is really advice to myself, a reminder to myself not to avoid change or uncertainty, but to go with it, to surf into change.

I’ll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia, I’ll even ‘hari-kari’ if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!

I come armed with a really good ignorance. I don’t strive toward ignorance. I come by it naturally.

I think it’s important for scientists to speak in their own voices and not just be mediated by journalists or others speaking for them.

Awards shows mainly publicize the people giving the awards.

To do a musical takes a tremendous amount of energy because you have to act and sing at the same time. And everything has to be precise. Because you can’t forget the lyrics because the...

There is a wonderful feeling of power when you’re a director, but I don’t think I need that, and I’m OK without it.

I’ve sat looking down into a volcano that could blow at any moment; I’ve helped catch a shark and several rattlesnakes; I let a tarantula walk across my hand, and I ate rat soup.

When I got recognized as a writer, when I got the Emmy, I was more excited than the Emmys I had gotten as an actor.

I’m most at home on the stage.

The U.S. Steel Hour.

Here’s my Golden Rule for a tarnished age: Be fair with others, but keep after them until they’re fair with you.

When I am at a dinner table, I love to ask everybody, ‘How long do you think our species might last?’ I’ve read that the average age of a species, of any species, is about...

I would like to know that when I read the paper in the morning, it’s telling me something that actually happened, and I think the vast majority of journalists want the same thing.

I’ve been nominated twice before as actor in a leading part. Now I’m nominated as actor in a supporting part. If I don’t win, I’ll just wait until I’m nominated for being in the theater...

During the first day, curious at having outsiders among them, a long stream of inmates came over and talked with me. Remarkably, according to what they told me, nearly every inmate in the prison didn’t...

Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative place where no one else has ever been.

I have a strong preference for being alive.

I’ve never tried to manipulate my image.

I always loved Sid Caesar and all the people on his program.

We need to be more conversant with it because science is in our lives. It’s in everything. It’s in the food we eat. It’s in the air we breathe. It’s everywhere.

Be as smart as you can, but remember that it is always better to be wise than to be smart.

I’m condemned by some inner compulsion to think about the daily rituals of my life. I have a low grade fever for improving myself in many ways, including everyday tasks.

What heartens me is to see ’30 Rock’ on the air. It makes me laugh from my gut, which I really like to do.

My background is on the stage, so when I’d write movies, they’d be a lot like plays.

The creative is the place where no one else have ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.

Almost everybody that’s well-known gets tagged with a nickname.

What I always wanted to get seen as was as a good actor, when it was the acting I was doing. When I’m writing, I want to try to be seen as a good writer....

If two scientists are giving their papers at a symposium, and one of them is just naturally better at talking to the public or talking to a group of people, that scientist is liable to...

When does she do all this thinking? We’re together all the time but she thinks deeply about things and with feeling and she can remember the facts. We’ve been married 48 years.

At times you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.

Be brave enough to live creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition....