I've been very lucky, considering what I look like and what I do.

It is a dark, dark world. If you're going to be in a dark world, I can't think of any better one to be in. I still think I'm very lucky to be in it.

You know, all writers are vampires and they'll look around and they watch you when you're not even thinking they're watching you and they'll slip stuff in.

Both my mother and father were very supportive of any career move any of us wanted to make.

I just don't think I'm that interesting. I don't think what I have to say is that interesting. To hear me go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, who... cares?

I've been very lucky, considering what I look like and what I do.

I'm an actor... I do a job and I go home. Why are you interested in me? You don't ask a truck driver about his job.

I lost 30 pounds to play my character in 'The Mexican', but people don't take to skinny mafia men, and I don't feel right when I'm thin.

All writers are vampires.

I was voted best-looking kid in high school but, as you can see, things changed. I used to say I was a 260 pound Woody Allen. You can make that 295 pound now.

'The Sopranos' all came down to the writing. I wouldn't have been on for as long as I was if the writing weren't so good.

Actors will say, 'My character wouldn't say that.' Who said it was your character?

Good writing will bring you to places you don't even expect sometimes.

I dabbled a little bit in acting in high school, and then I forgot about it completely. And then at about 25 I went to a class. I don't think anybody in my family thought it was an intelligent choice. I don't think anybody thought I'd succeed, which is understandable. I think they were just happy that I was doing something.

I don't think I will do a Mafia character again. I want to get away from the violence a little bit, because it is starting to bother me personally.

I find it hard to relax. I live in New York.

I have nothing but respect for HBO.

I like dark places.

I like idiotic comedies.

I love hearing people laugh.

I want nothing to do with privilege.

I'd love to live in New Orleans. I love the freedom of it - for good and for bad.

I'm not a big, three-hour-play, Ibsen-revival kind of man.

Part of the fun of acting is the research, finding out about other people.

People don't know and they shouldn't know that you work incredibly hard as an actor.

Putting somebody else's pants on and pretending to be somebody else is occasionally, as you grow older, horrifying.

Standing in public in other people's clothes, pretending to be someone else. It's a strange way for a grown man to make a living.

No two directors make the same film the same way.

I think the plasticity of the novel is its greatest challenge. There are no rules; there is no necessary form. You can know what you want it to be, or do, and still not know how to write it. There are endless possibilities, infinite choices. What voice should it be in? What events to start with? What characters will be part of it?

I guess I've never really been aggressive, although almost everybody else in show business fights and gouges and knees to get where they want to be.

To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life.

I loved Rent when I first heard it, but it grew on me and so did Tick, Tick... Boom. Some songs are more interesting than others and sometimes the ones that never stood out at first end up being the best to perform.

If the Chinese will not learn the true principles of government, all else will be useless. Knowledge is power, and although a country may be weak, still, if it possess but a modicum of knowledge, the enemy will not be able to completely overthrow it; although that country may be in danger, the race will not be extirpated.

I give everything I have every time I take the ball. With that, I also know that there will always be a risk of injury when playing this game that I love.

I am from the age of magazines, so the Internet is terrifying to me. But I am learning.

In families there is always the mythology. My father died when my kids were quite young still, and yet they still tell his stories. That is how a person lives on.

Who can sit back as our towns and cities are torn apart by violence and be content with the status quo?

I hate striking out, doesn't matter what time of the game. I just don't like striking out.

I've actually met quite a few of my heroes from the past.

I know every day is a gift but wheres the receipt for Mondays I want to exchange it for another Friday.

Being the one woman in the room should not be seen as a victory. If there's only one of us in the room, we're still a token; we don't actually have an empowered voice. If there's two of us, we're still a minority. If there's three, then we're allowed to have a multiplicity of opinions.

Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.

I got quite good results from protein plates.

No man is to be credited for his mere authority's sake, unless he can show Scripture for the maintenance of his opinion.

Learn to adjust yourself to the conditions you have to endure but make a point of trying to alter or correct conditions so that they are most favorable to you.

I'm not looking to get away from anything. I like what I've done. I like what I get to do and I enjoy working with my friends. I loved those movies, but this is incredible.

Love is playing every game as if it's your last.

For a few years, more people have been leaving our country than entering it. Wherever it is possible, we must lower the entry hurdles for those who bring the country forward.

At its best, an injunction creates a kind of vigilant heat that moves kids toward the light.