Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I come armed with a really good ignorance. I don't strive toward ignorance. I come by it naturally.
Anyone I know who's almost died has come out of it, at least for a while, looking at things differently.
What heartens me is to see '30 Rock' on the air. It makes me laugh from my gut, which I really like to do.
Some of the greatest things, as I understand, they have come about by serendipity, the greatest discoveries
Some of the greatest things, as I understand, they have come about by serendipity, the greatest discoveries.
When I was about ten years old, I gave my teacher an April Fool's sandwich, which had a dead goldfish in it.
You know what my earliest memories are? Going from one burlesque town to another. My father was in burlesque.
My mother didn't try to stab my father until I was six, but she must have shown signs of oddness before that.
Achingly funny as it was, Larry Gelbart's writing gave off sparks that turned a hard light on the way we are.
Here's my Golden Rule for a tarnished age: Be fair with others, but keep after them until they're fair with you.
It's too bad I'm not as wonderful a person as people say I am, because the world could use a few people like that.
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.
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.
Awards can give you a tremendous amount of encouragement to keep getting better, no matter how young or old you are.
I think when you're acting, you usually don't have to know too much beyond how to pronounce the words you're saying.
Republicans are as capable of coming up with great ideas and moving this country along as anyone - they just don't do it.
No, I never thought about my image. It interests me that there are people who do, that they seem to be methodical about it.
Jean Paul Sartre says in "No Exit" that hell is other people. Well, our task in life is to make it heaven. Or at least earth.
I don't miss directing at all, and I don't miss screenwriting either because somebody's always telling you to do something different.
Usually, comedy shows only influence other comedy shows. 'M*A*S*H' is one of the few comedies that influenced dramatic shows as well.
I read science, because to me, that's extremely exciting. It's like a great detective story, and it's happening right in front of us.
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.
It's very important for us to see that science is done by people, not just brains but whole human beings, and sometimes at great cost.
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.
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.
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?'
In 2003, I almost died of an intestinal blockage when I was on a mountain in Chile, filming a segment for 'Scientific American Frontiers.'
I'm in the real world, some people try to steal from me, and I stop them, frequently, take them to court. I love a good lawsuit. It's fun.
I play tennis non-obsessively. I seem to beat people I play a lot or half the time, so I guess I gravitate to people who are as bad as I am.
You can watch actors create their illusions, but if you don't see where they get the pigeons from, you don't really know how they're doing it.
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.
When I was in high school, I fell under the spell of that crazy idea that if you're interested in the arts, you can't be interested in science.
It's a funny feeling to work with people who you consider your colleagues and to realize that they actually are young enough to be your children.
I'm greedy for that satisfaction of doing something hard and knowing that, even though I was afraid I couldn't do it, that somehow I can deliver.
Begin challenging your assumptions. Your assumptions are the windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile or the light won't come in.
For me, I find that even though I've accomplished a few things in my life, looking back on accomplishments doesn't give me a sense of satisfaction.
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.
The one hour live debate in the West Wing that we did was one of the most exciting times for me on stage or on camera, because anything could go wrong.
I used to not want to die in any way but in my sleep when I was a young man. I'd like to die awake now, if possible, with people around me who love me.
Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in while, or the light won't come in.
Our lives depend on good communication. Good communication helps personal relationships, it helps bosses and employees get along better. We rely on it.
My father sang well, and he was a handsome man. When he walked down the street, people sometimes mistook him for Cary Grant and asked for his autograph.
Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in.
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.
As an artist, as an actor, as a writer, you have to use what's personal to you. You have to be personal about your work; otherwise, it doesn't ring true.
Working on The West Wing was similar in many ways to my experience on M*A*S*H, because you had people willing to work late at night to get it just right.
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.
I'm an angry person, angrier than most people would imagine, I get flashes of anger. What works for me is working out when it's useful to use that anger.
'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.
After a while I started to think of that as an image of something that went a lot deeper than the dead dog, which is you can't bring back anything to life.