Ask not what the role can do for you; ask what you can do for the role.

Politics is too partisan, and sometimes patriotism is cast aside. Patriotism is honor and love of your country and your brothers and sisters. With politics I get the impression that it's all about what's good for the party and not necessarily what's good for the country.

True love doesn't happen right away; it's an ever-growing process. It develops after you've gone through many ups and downs, when you've suffered together, cried together, laughed together.

Being the only non-Black was a unique experience. After a few weeks, you're not aware of skin color differences. You see the color; you're not blind, but it doesn't matter. You see the human being first.

I found enormous opposition to my religion. It's like if you want to strengthen your biceps, you lift heavy weight, as heavy as you can handle, and work your muscles against resistance until it grows strong. I had to do that with my religion.

It is to TV that I owe my freedom from bondage of the Latin lover roles. Television came along and gave me parts to chew on. It gave me wings as an actor.

There couldn't be better parents than mine, loving yet strict. They disciplined with love. A child without discipline is, in away, a lost child. You cannot have freedom without discipline.

Because we should always respect other nationalities, I have always tried to play them with dignity.

If you shake your fist, the other guy will shake his too. But if you extend your hand to shake their hand, then they will extend theirs also, and you've made a friend.

Standing on soil feels so much different than standing on city pavement; it lets you look inward and reflect and see who you really are, while you see a beautiful, unspoiled land as far as the eye can see. It allows your inner life to grow.

And yet I think of Christopher Reeve who said he would pay two million dollars to be able to feel pain again. What a courageous man! So I have to think that pain is a blessing.

Hollywood does not write parts for people like me, an elderly gentleman, and when they find out you're crippled, forget about it. No, I'll never work again.

Ask not what the role can do for you; ask what you can do for the role.

What is appealing is the idea of attaining the unattainable and learning from it. Once you obtain a fantasy it becomes a reality, and that reality is not as exciting as your fantasy. Through the fantasies you learn to appreciate your own realities.

I'm an independent. I'm a centrist. A new generation is arriving that has grown up with a multiplicity of choice in every aspect of their lives, and yet politics is the last place that they are told that they should be satisfied with a choice between brand A and brand B. It doesn't fit the way they think. It doesn't fit the way they live.

There's many women now who think, 'Surely we don't need feminism anymore, we're all liberated and society's accepting us as we are.' Which is all hogwash. It's not true at all.

The boundaries between life and death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where one ends and where the other begins

I was in an acting class taught by Eric Morris, and Jack Nicholson was in the class. He wrote the script for 'Head', so all of us in the class got little tiny parts in the movie.

It's morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money.

Commercials are not the only exposure that obesity gets on TV. It is by no means a rarity on the wonderful Judge Judy's show when both plaintiff and accused all but literally fill the screen.

Ben was more improvisational, and relied less on methodology, and basically is a guitarist who switched to bass, whereas Jeff has a more traditional approach to playing bass in a band, and has a great sense of what his band sounds like, and we lock up nicely.

I went to New York for the first time when I was in college for a school trip and, uh, it did not appeal to me. It was too much hustle and bustle.

Every morning when I woke up, my mother was already in the kitchen making breakfast. It was always the same: steamed rice, pickled vegetables, grilled fish and miso soup. Each day there was something different in the soup such as tofu or potatoes.

The only way you preserve pitching arms is throwing; that makes the arm stronger.

We are perverse creatures and never satisfied.

There was living in the palace at this time a brother of the great Germanicus, and consequently an uncle of the late emperor, whose name was Claudius Caesar.

The thrill of doing 'Good People' is I love those kinds of stories, and I'm good at them, and it's wonderful to see that material given to a terrific director and a terrific cast.

My schedule has slowed a little. I've cut back on some of my assignments. But I still have the enthusiasm for the sports world that I had 38 years ago.

The nation voted us to power to see unity and communal harmony, not for any division or communality.

The abundance of life is unlimited, it expands with the generosity, compassion, inventiveness, and service that you contribute.

I love the Coen brothers. They're so brilliant, and they always surprise you in one way or another. 'A Serious Man' was awesome. I like stuff like that, that kind of throws you for a loop. It takes you on a journey that is unexpected.

We are like caterpillars contemplating pupation.

You have to transmit to them what it's like being in the theater. And it has to come from somewhere inside you and not by being like what somebody did last year.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.

I think that the good and the great are only separated by the willingness to sacrifice.

When you're playing a romantic version of a real person, you're playing a version of the truth.

freedom only gives you something to be sorry for.

The disaster ruins everything all the while leaving everything intact.