I think you have a pact with an audience in every picture, and I think the pact is to try and be truthful and to be real.

Kids in general make things fresh and alive and they have this great appreciation for, Holy mackerel, we're making a movie!

What does it mean for an actor to make a part his own? It means that he takes on what you had intended and starts to put in his own stuff so that it becomes something that could only happen if he played it.

Media reporting denied privacy to anybody doing what I do for a living. It was no longer possible to work on your picture in privacy.

Things get very distorted when you do a movie, weirdly so.

I had a marketing idea that everybody hated, decency is sexy.

Great things that can happen when you're doing a movie.

I took some time out for life.

I think you have a pact with an audience in every picture, and I think the pact is to try and be truthful and to be real.

I value comedy. I value somebody who can be funny.

I have a lot of nightmares.

You become so obsessed, and that's not a bad thing for a movie. Serve it with that sense that it's the whole world.

I love romantic comedy, but I think you have to have another idea that you're chasing along with romantic comedy.

Tone is up for grabs in what we do - what's the tone of the scene.

A lot of things just aren't true any more.

I've done it with Broadcast News-where there was no finish line, there was no agenda that I had to move all the characters to this point, that I was sort of open to what happens.

I'm big on research.

I always fight hard to push a movie to the point where it pulls me.

I always loved writing, but never considered that I could do it professionally.

I always think a successful television series is the best job because it gives you community, it doesn't demand temporary insanity the way movies do, and you can be almost a normal person.

I came to 20th Century Fox to do movies, and then they started a network, and they asked me to do a show as part of their starting what became the Fox network.

I have a rule in research: The third time you hear something, it's generally true.

I laugh every day. There are days when my laughs are pretty hollow. Dust comes out of your mouth, and your bones make a funny sound. But I'm laughing.

I love it if comedy reflects real life because to me it's more reassuring that we'll get through.

I think television keeps on being a place where writers can go, and if they're successful, they can have their way, and they can have creative freedom.

Linking up the things you were with the things you become is what growing up is.

When you work alongside somebody day in and day out, the relationships tend to be wonderful: they're lifelong.

It's a brave new world.

In Hollywood, you grow up quick.

Government has a legitimate sphere of operation. The problem arises when that sphere continually expands, encompassing areas where government lacks legitimacy.

The fundamental weakness in the Tea Party machine is the stark difference between what the leaders of the Tea Party elite - plutocrats like the Koch Brothers -want and what the average grassroots Tea Party follower wants.

I can't be everywhere, but I'm always in one of my kitchens, and hopefully I'm motivating and inspiring.

My father ran a saloon in Kenosha, Wis., which is just about as rough a living as I can think of. It was brutal; it scared the hell out of me. I was so petrified all the while I was a child, I didn't know what I was doing half the time.

M*A*S*H offered real characters and everybody identified with them because they had such soul. The humor was intelligent and it always assumed that you had an intellect.

If you keep on writing for three years, every day, you should be strong. Of course, you have to be strong mentally, also. But in the first place, you have to be strong physically. That is a very important thing. Physically and mentally you have to be strong.

In this world youve a soul for a compass and a heart for a pair of wings.

I act probably a lot more than you see. I happen to choose movies that don't have much of a life, or I choose movies that are shown on cable instead of as features.

The only reason my work seems to be eclectic up to a certain period is because I was a failure as an actor.

It's about personal development. It's about creating your own character and pushing it to the limit. It's about pushing yourself so far out of your own and everybody else's idea of who you are and what you're capable of, that you no longer believe in limits.

People can say what they want about me. But I've got a big heart and will keep going.

I had a tremendous four seasons there in Denver, and you know, those are four years that I'll always hold very close to my heart.

The right server for the right job.

Tears are like rain. They loosen up our soil so we can grow in different directions.

The measure of a superhero is always his nemesis.

I'm not reading reviews and critics. I don't care. I guess I'm still a little on my own planet.

It's quite difficult for a parent to know that their daughter is in great danger.

Dinner is a great first date. Don't believe that stuff about girls not wanting to eat on a first date - sharing a romantic meal is so sexy.

In America today, a young person needs more education after high school just to have a chance to make it in the middle class. Not a guarantee, just a chance to make it.

You cannot set art off in a corner and hope for it to have vitality, reality, and substance.