David Duchovny Quotes - Page 4

At Princeton I wrote my junior paper on Virginia Woolf, and for my senior thesis I wrote on Samuel Beckett. I wrote some about "Between the Acts" and "Mrs. Dalloway'' but mostly about "To the Lighthouse." With Beckett I focused, perversely, on his novels, "Molloy," "Malone Dies," and "The Unnamable." That's when I decided I should never write again.

For hundreds of years, that was the major form of entertainment: The grown-ups sat around and watched the kids play. Now they sit around and watch the television. The actors are the kids.

I don't know if [Samuel] Beckett is something you ever bring to the beach - get out of the water, towel off, and start reading some of "The Unnamable." Although, because it's the kind of book you can open to any page and start reading, it is beach reading in that way.

As we age, there are different things that become important to us and that means that different aspects of our character come to the forefront; certain aspects recede. And that's fun. It would be shitty to have to imitate myself.

In high school and college, I was an athlete.

I don't see any difference in the craft of acting, in film or television. It's absolutely the same. It's different storytelling, playing a character over multiple hours, as opposed to two.

Chemistry is really about two people who like to act together, I think. It's like tennis in the most cliched way. It's like if you hit the ball, they hit the ball back, and they don't hit it into the stands, and they don't put the ball in their pocket and walk off - and they don't argue with the umpire, you know?

It seems unlikely that we're alone in the universe. But I'm pretty sure nobody's hiding any contact.

You're kinda striding the line of what's yours and theirs. What's yours, what's mine, what's ours as creators of it and what's yours as owners.

Usually, when I act, I try to forget the words and let them come, and just find my way through them.

People are really much more respectful than they're made out to be and much more discerning about the fact that I'm not the character I play.

Those characters are forever searchingeven if we're not watching them, they're out there, in some dimension. Mulder and Scully are still doing their thing, because that's their nature.

I feel I have to work hard to nurture whatever talent I have as an actor. I feel like it's not natural to me. So I don't take it for granted... What I think is my natural ability - which is writing - I think I totally take that for granted.

I mean, there's chemistry in life and there's acting chemistry. I'm not saying they're the same thing, but they're as mysterious.

I really enjoy taking an outdoor shower.

I wouldn't succeed at musical theater.

If Fox Mulder discovered that Larry Sanders was a clone? I think he would stab him . . . but it wouldn't be with an ice pick.

I'm very proud of my Scottish blood.

If you have Darwin, Christ and Nietzsche, they're all going to talk at once. You need somebody who listens.

I'll instinctively know that I identify with a character.

TV directors just aren't sexy for some reason, Although, you know, Rob and Kim [Manners] are very sexy in my eyes.

The only problem with Mitch [Pileggi, the actor who plays Skinner] is that his bald head means there's nothing to hold onto when he starts to buck.

I'm the one usually wearing the dress, which is what I would've preferred, but they wouldn't let me. It's been 15 years since I did that and my ass isn't as good as it used to be.

We like to keep the sexual tension underplayed, especially between the Smoking Man and me. Once we thought he was my father . . . it got more interesting.

I had to work in one of the most beautiful ski resorts in the world for almost three weeks. Pity me.