Hector Elizondo

Food is a passion. Food is love.

I'm a parent, especially when you've had the intense parenting the way I had. It's all in the bank. It's all in the great experience bank. Those are your secrets. That's the stuff that makes your work rich, that's what you dip into.

I think you can tell the human condition better through comedy.

I used to work, part time, in a deli, in those days when your parents made you work just so you should know what work was like. And you'd make 4, 5, 6, ten dollars.

You know, a low budget, you have to work harder. You have to plan well; you don't have much time to rehearse.

Sometimes I just walk through; I just show up, as in The Other Sister.

I love the fact that it starts from there, and you don't know where it's gonna go. Wait long enough - love will find you. Everything's a surprise. When you think you've got it all figured out... as Emerson said, the dice of God are always loaded.

You can trust a Neil Simon script. Every dot. Every dash; that pause means something. He takes all the jokes out, practically.

I never learned to cook; I was a little spoiled as far as that's concerned.

Which reminds me of a fortune cookie: you often find your destiny on the path you take to avoid it.

Pretty Woman was the easiest job I've ever done. I just wore the right toupee.

Yes, and it's my third movie with Richard. American Gigolo was my first.

I guess I work well with others I handle younger actors well.

I work with Garry no matter what. What I wanted to keep going was the streak.

I started in 1946 in radio. I was ten years old. I was discovered singing in a school play. Someone was in the audience and it's six degrees of separation.

Definitely not a sitcom, that's my first condition. No sitcoms.

On those, I've said it before, I work free. It's the waiting they pay me for.

The fact that that's the difference between Mexicans and Cubans is pronounced. It's so immediately recognizable, the way a Cuban speaks, the way a Cuban moves the hands.

I started in radio, again accidentally. I wasn't looking for this kind of work at all.

You're at the top of your game if you do comedy.

I'm attracted to pathos, because life is mostly pathos. I've had a lot of it in my life.

I've dodged bullets but there's no scandal in my life.