Sometimes in the most tragic situation, something just profoundly funny happens.

People can be a hoot on the set, but if they're not good to work with, that tires very quickly.

Maybe it's because I'm getting older, I'm finding enjoyment in things that stop time. Just the simple act of tasting a glass of wine is its own event. You're not downing a glass of wine in the midst of doing something else.

We can't control what the ratings will be. It's like, if you're going to go skiing, do you hope you'll have a good day of skiing? Yes. Do you hope you won't break your leg? Yes.

Last year, I finally got my own grand piano, and that was a big thing for me because it's always been and always will be a very important part of my life.

We all went to Kelsey's wedding, and yeah, we go to parties. We also go to each other's house. A group of us got together over at Kelsey's and just read through some plays just for the fun of it. That may not be everyone's idea of a good time, but we had a good time.

There's nothing worse than putting two similar shows back-to-back. Viewers don't want to watch one show and then sit through another half-hour of almost the same thing.

I went and took golf lessons so Dad would let me play with him. I was just terrible... but I was able to have a wonderful time just walking around with Dad. I can see the real pleasure of that game.

I was chased through a chateau in the Loire Valley by a bunch of American school girls.

Don't you always feel bad when they take away one of the spoons? It's like you ordered wrong.

Sometimes in the most tragic situation, something just profoundly funny happens.

On some level in acting, what you're trying to find is truth, because when it's true is when it's also funny.

I was as happy doing theater in New York for little or no money as I am now doing television for more money. The happiness, I guess, comes out of it being a good job. The success has to do with the fact that it's a good job that will continue.

My dad had been an actor... not only had my dad been an actor, but his dad had been an actor, and my great-grandfather had been an actor. And who knows before then?

I found every single laugh as Laertes that you can find and only realized later that you really shouldn't find any at all.

You only have a week to do a show. I mean, there's only so deep you can dig in that week.

I would always fall down the big main staircase in our house. My favorite thing in the world was to pretend to be horribly killed at the top of it, and to fall dramatically down to the bottom of it.

I was going to be a concert pianist, and when I was in high school, my parents were scared to death that I would focus too much on that too soon. And that I'd end up in some sort of dead end, and not fulfilling whatever potential they thought I had.

Alzheimer's is a devastating disease. It was painful for me and my family to watch my grandfather deteriorate. We must find a cure for this horrible disease.

The first year I was on the show, it took an interviewer about 45 minutes to get it out of me that I even had a dog, and even then I wouldn't tell him the dog's name.

From Kelsey, I have learned among many other things the value of turning on a dime and how you can have an extremely funny and extremely poignant moment with absolutely no separation in between... and sometimes in the same moment.

I don't remember any sibling rivalry growing up, because by the time I was really conscious, Tom was going away to college. My relationship with him, which is a very close one, really developed in more recent years.

I probably was as bad as a security guard as I was as a tie salesman.

I don't have the time to tell you all the things I've learned from this cast. It's an extraordinary ensemble because we all support each other so well.

It's funny, 'cause it seems like just yesterday that I was the youngest player just starting out. But now there are young players all over the league, and they'll ask me questions about playing overseas or finding an agent.

When Frank the Pug is singing I Will Survive, the only reason it's funny is that Will is in that shot trying not to get angry. A shot of a dog singing I Will Survive on its own will not get a laugh.

I sometimes lie awake at night trying to think of something funny that Richard Nixon said.

Robert Altman's Nashville is my all-time favorite film because it covers all the bases - it's original, moving, and has something to say, but also funny and incredibly entertaining.

You amaze me. You're 229 years old and that's what you think is funny.

You have to understand the tone of the movie, because if it's supposed to be funny, it can be funny violent like the Home Alone stuff, but you have to really understand the tone of what you're doing and make the action work for that and for the character.

It is funny that men who are supposed to be scientific cannot get themselves to realise the basic principle of physics, that action and reaction are equal and opposite, that when you persecute people you always rouse them to be strong and stronger.

Half of the great comedians I've had in my shows and that I paid a lot of money to and who made my customers shriek were not only not funny to me, but I couldn't understand why they were funny to anybody.

There's a constant flow of child actors. It's kind of funny to watch the new crew come through. I think, You poor little things. You're going to have to struggle for a long time.

For sheer sexiness, a man must be beautiful. Funny. yes. Clever, no.

I don't think there has been any increase in sophistication in the audience. When people are aware of a concept that's easy to understand, and there's an actor who will attract them to the theater and it's a movie that's funny three-quarters of the time, it will be successful.

Books are funny little portable pieces of thought.

I had an idea of what I thought was funny. It's kind of based on how I am.

So while it is true that I find really dark stuff funny sometimes, it's also true that as a writer of books I want to have the whole range of human emotions.

When we criticize in Iran the actions of the government, the fundamentalists say that we and the Bush Administration are in the same camp. The funny thing is that human rights activists and Mr. Bush can never be situated in the same group.

So to me, Texas Hold 'em puts me to sleep. At least when you play stud, you can be funny as you deal. Somebody some day is going to come up with a Stud show that's going to work.

Great, big, serious novels always get awards. If it's a battle between a great, big, serious novel and a funny novel, the funny novel is doomed.

Baldwin is sort of getting to be a bit funny. I don't know what happened, but a few years ago they suddenly went bankrupt and Gibson bought the whole outfit. Since then they haven't seemed to be doing an awfully good job of providing pianos.

It's funny how sometimes how the public some people think I was born like this. That I maybe I sleep and I do big muscle, but its a lot of work to look like this and to be in this kind of condition.

I think back to some of the things Harry said and some of the things I said trying to be funny. If I said them now, it would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country.

Shirley MacLaine said, You're so funny, then gave me a hug. Everything went white. I couldn't hear, I couldn't see. I thought I was going to pass out.

I think movies glamorize violence, in the sense that they make it in a way that it's either cool or funny.

I remember interviewing someone I actually felt bad for, and therefore didn't want to take an ironic stance against him. It actually turned out to be a really funny piece.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'

I don't think know if anything's going to translate anywhere. You're making a movie, you hope it's going to be funny, you can't think about how it's going to go over.