People do think I'm Jewish. But we're Irish Catholic. My father had a brogue.

All these things that enter your head are assignments. You write them up and then throw them out there and if someone wants to do it, your assignment is done.

I have a kind of objective luxury about my career.

What I learned, a little too late, was that the 'traditional' Martin Short target viewer weighs under 300 pounds. Unfortunately, I was on during daytime.

Sometimes people get passionate about the obscure jokes.

People do think I'm Jewish. But we're Irish Catholic. My father had a brogue.

I've chosen to treat my life more like a party than something to stress about.

What's great about being a character actor is you know that you can survive forever. It's not about the gloss of your eyebrows.

I've never done an improvised movie as a fictitious character. I think that's the challenge.

My mother was the concert master of the symphony. Absurdity and eccentricity were not criticized.

Being the youngest of five, you're adored, you're fueled with confidence.

No one is any one thing.

One of my great influences was Don Knotts as Barney Fife.

You go through publicists because it's easy for a publicist to say to another publicist, "No".

I have sometimes imagined my own death and brought myself to tears.

I've done lots of improv things but not a whole movie.

I think I'm funny because my family, my siblings were funny.

I hate to lull the audience into letting them think that something is something. It's always fun to defy expectations.

David Lynch and I almost made a movie together in the late '80s. We had lots of dinners and lunches. He's a very cool, hip guy. This film, let's face it, is like an homage to him, I would imagine he'd find it funny.

Someone once asked me what was the weirdest question I was ever asked. And I was stymied.

I think loss can fuel how you lead your whole life.

I pretend I'm one of the royal family when I'm in a hotel and that the hotel belongs to me - it is a palace.

All you're trying to do in an improvisation is get as much material as possible for the editing room.

I know if I were to drop dead now, people would probably write nice things in the obit.

You try to figure out things to keep yourself interested. It's very easy to get lulled.

You go through publicists because it's easy for a publicist to say to another publicist, 'No'.

When he was twenty-three or twenty-four my father began to learn German and read philosophy in his spare hours, which did not look as though he were destined to remain long on board ship!

My father was often angry when I was most like him.

Arnold Bennett was a writer I admired. He was actually taking notes at his father's deathbed.

Most fathers don't see the war within the daughter, her struggles with conflicting images of the idealized and flawed father, her temptation both to retreat to Daddy's lap and protection and to push out of his embrace to that of beau and the world beyond home.

My mother is Irish, my father is black and Venezuelan, and me - I'm tan, I guess.

My father was a police officer before he retired. One of my brothers is also a police officer, and I think they kind of expected I would do something along those lines, like become a fireman or something.

The fame aspect of winning the Masters... besides being married and becoming a father, that's a strong third there.

I'd rather be David Ladd's father than Alan Ladd any day.

I hated Chris, my brother. I would pull his hair and kick him, until one day my father gave him permission to fight back. I'll be apologizing to him for the rest of my life.

Being a father, well, I don't know if this is a change, but it makes me want to get out of here faster. Get off the clock. Just 'cause the baby is my reason for living, my reason for coming to work.

I would not be gotten into a schoolhouse until I was eight years old. Nor did I accomplish much after I started. I doubt if I had gone to school six months in all when my father died. I was fourteen at the time.

Therefore, I do not wish to consider any proposition to cede any portion of our tribal holdings to the Great Father.

My father was an agnostic.

My father taught me that the only way you can make good at anything is to practice, and then practice some more.

I want to be a soldier as my father was.

Theses officers were good friends, so it must have been a terrible argument, because the one who played chess with my father was so angry that he walked over to the dentist's house and got the dentist out of bed and shot him.

My father started me singing in church.

My father could have been deported because on his immigration application he said that he was a printer, obviously because he didn't want them to be checking his writings.

The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.

Middle age is the awkward period when Father Time starts catching up with Mother Nature.

I think it's time to do clean-up for a generation. I believe this is one of the movies that hits home for all colors and all races. Everybody I talk to, black or white, suburban, rich or poor, can relate to rejection, can relate to not having a father or a mother.

A king, realizing his incompetence, can either delegate or abdicate his duties. A father can do neither. If only sons could see the paradox, they would understand the dilemma.

I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.