If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
The difference - the fundamental difference between theater acting and film acting is that film acting is disjunctive.
I think that anybody's craft is fascinating. A taxi driver talking about taxi driving is going to be very, very interesting.
Our language, one of our most precious natural resources, deserves at least as much protection as our woodlands, streams and whooping cranes.
The definition of genius, really, should be that that person can do what the rest of us have to learn how to do.
When you're talking about the thing that is most important to someone, they're liable to feel something strong.
Geniuses always think it's easier than we make it out to be.
I must confess that when I'm alone in my study, here in New York, writing; that's when I'm happy.
I may be writing well, I may be writing poorly, but I enjoy the act of writing and sometimes when it turns out okay, I feel an elation that is incomparable.
If I were to ask you for example right now to go back with me and define those moments in your life that shaped you as a person and you began to reexamine them, something would happen.
I became an actor by accident, not by design.
The foundation for film acting is stage acting.
There's only one man I've called a coward, and that's Brian Doyle-Murray.
I would say that writing, both the act of writing, and of course reading of other people's work is, for me, supreme joy.
I was originally going to be a lawyer, and the only thing I remember from the art of cross-examination is - you can see this one coming up Sixth Avenue - never ask a question the answer to which you do not know.
The Pivot Questionnaire that I ask other people, when I have on rare occasion answered it, the answer to the question, "What turns you on?" Is words. Not mine, other people's. Words, words, words, that's what turns me on.
I'd been on all the television programs as an actor, as a writer, as a director, as a producer.
There are still actors who use emotional memory, affective memory, which was Lee Strasberg's emphasis, not his total emphasis. She taught everything at the Actor's Studio. But nevertheless, she felt that it impeded her.
Comedians don't laugh. They're too busy analyzing why it's funny or not.
I wanted when we began this to have a conversation, the kind that you're able to have, and the only way I knew how to do it was not to have a pre-interview.
Life is just a Box of Chocolates.
A good day's writing, when I turn off my computer after I know that I've written okay, or as well as I can write, that's a day well spent.
I'll miss it until the day I die, and I'm convinced to this day that I can get on a horse and jump a course of fences satisfactorily. It doesn't leave you.
I became a professional actor in Detroit and I was able to earn some money. It was a good job because it permitted me to study. It fit perfectly with school.
Always accepting the greatest joy of all is the time that I get to spend with my wife.
