As an actor, the biggest compliment you can get, in my book is for someone to believe that you're the character.

I keep waiting for the roof to cave in. I was raised to follow the Golden Rule, you know, treat people the way you wish to be treated. That's kind of the way I live my life. Maybe someone up there likes me for that.

And if you have great writing, it's really easy, but if it's not so great and you have to work a little harder, I could tell where the work needed to be done but comedy is just fun.

I am not bisexual. I am not gay. I have never had sex with men.

Having kids has been great for me. I have two beautiful step- kids, as well as my own new daughter. They've really helped me to keep my feet firmly on the ground, and life is good. I feel like I'm the luckiest guy here.

The more cynical you become, the better off you'll be.

When I was younger and studying acting, I never ever saw myself in the sitcom world; it was drama that really turned me on and still does.

Why do you have to break up with her? Be a man. Just stop calling.

Comedy is just to me, maybe it's a natural knack, if I can see where the joke is in the writing and I can see where the setup is and I can tell this is the way to make it.

As an actor, the biggest compliment you can get, in my book is for someone to believe that you're the character.

I find the earth to be a place of misery in which I am surrounded by the conformity that kills society.

Misery is manifold. The wretchedness of the earth is multiform.

I've grown tremendously as an actor by being there. It is comic writing the likes of which I don't know that I'll ever see again and it's been a great, great experience.

I don't like silk underwear. They don't do the job, you know?

This whole acting thing was always just for me and was always an absolute shot in the dark. If it didn't pan out, I had my hammer and tool belt, banging nails again tomorrow if I had to.

In comedy, you have to be unafraid to hang from the tree branch naked in the high wind and you have to be absolutely unafraid to look ridiculous and silly.

You basically have a group of four spies who are chosen for a mission they feel for the fact of how competent they are and how their expertise and they're the right one for the job. But ultimately they find out they've been actually chosen for their incompetence.

'Friends' was a true ensemble. There really was no star of the show.

'Friends' was an education in intelligent comedic banter; in intelligent vernacular. It was an education in scene study. It was an education in group dynamic. I came out of there with a master's degree in comedy.

I believe that laughter is the best emotional Band-Aid in the world. It's like nature's Neosporin.

I could build and roof a house, though electricity is not my thing.

I have funny bones. If there's ever any kind of tension, I'll always be the one to try and be funny to loosen things up.

I really like the half-hour comedy. I really do. I know people that are in movies all the time and they, you know, they don't see their families as much. And that takes its toll over time.

I'm much more low-key than the characters I've played.

It's funny - nowadays people that are famous get chased by paparazzi. They have this fame, but they don't have the money to hide from it.

When there's writing that you really trust, it's very freeing as an artist.

You can't be funny if you don't have good material.

My favorite actor is Wallace Beery.

I've been a very lucky actor.

I don't think I could be happy as an actor if there was a tyrant on the set.

When I was starting to get noticed as an actor in the 1970s for something other than the third cowboy on the right who ended up dying in every movie or episode, Burt Reynolds was the biggest star in the world.

Most parts that can be played by one actor can equally well be played by another, but not this.

I think, frankly, that I'm a better director than I was an actor.

I knew an actor's career goes up and down and back up again. Your standing in this business can't be your whole identity; otherwise, you're doomed.

I don't think any actor feels comfortable watching themselves in movies. You must be very narcissistic. The problem with your own opinion of yourself is that contrary to the normal spectators, when you watch a film you are in, you only watch yourself.

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.

I never dreamed about being an actor, because that was out of reach. Coming from a small town that was big in farming, and also big in clothing factories, you don't dream about being a professional football player or an actor.

My goal was always to be recognized as a good actor but no one was interested in that, simply because society just wants to warm towards your appearance. This is the great blemish of society.

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

It was very natural for me to want to disappear into dark theater, I am really very shy. That is something that people never seem to fully grasp because, when you are an actor, you are meant to be an exhibitionist.

I think that I've still not been successful at playing the role of the retired actor, and I'd like to work on that.

And once you cease to be a real person, you stop being a good actor.

When I decided I wanted to be an actor, I said I wanted to work with quality actors and directors.

There are roles I want that my agency might not want me to do because of the subject matter or whatever. Or there are roles that people won't bring to me because they don't think I'll do it. And that is a big strain because an actor wants to act.

Reality is, I'm an actor and an entertainer, and I really wouldn't know what to do with another profession.

I still feel like I'm trying to make it. It's hard to shed the struggling actor thing.

Only a great actor finds the difficulties of the actor's art infinite.

Follow the wisdom of the great actor, James Cagney, you hit your mark, you look the other guy in the eye, and you tell the truth.