For nearly a quarter of a century three men in this country were anchors in more ways than one. At a time so many things in our country were changing, they were solid.

What is beauty, anyway? It’s more than something pleasant looking. If it doesn’t stop us in our tracks and make us unable to move for a moment, unable to put into words what’s closing off...

It’s not an epitaph. I felt I could look back at my life and get a good story out of it. It’s a picture of somebody trying to figure things out. I’m not trying to...

I had never really wanted to be famous. Everyone is supposed to want to be rich and famous, but as a boy I never knew what rich was, and the first view I had of...

I was always interested in figuring things out. I’d do experiments, like combining things I found around the house to see what would happen if I put them together.

We’re left now with just a little bit of snow at the bottom of the screen,

‘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 fix my grandchildren’s computers.

All I’ve ever tried to do is play real people.

If scientists could communicate more in their own voices – in a familiar tone, with a less specialized vocabulary – would a wide range of people understand them better? Would their work be better understood...

In the midst of the sense of tragedy or loss, sometimes laughter is not only healing, it’s a way of experiencing the person that you’ve lost again.

You know what my earliest memories are? Going from one burlesque town to another. My father was in burlesque.

The hardest thing for me about making movies, and that included ‘M*A*S*H’ because it was made like a movie, was starting and stopping.

I made my first stage appearance when I was 6 months old.

Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I’ve Learned

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.