I saw and I met a lot of people who were in the field. It also provided a context in which I came to respect what the actor did, because I saw how difficult it actually was to do.

I think it's good to meet smart people and talk.

Nobody has a franchise on what is good.

I still think I'm going to do something else when I grow up.

I just don't get invited to the same dinner parties I used to like to go to.

If I don't see my kids for six days, I start to get withdrawal pains.

I don't even like to use the word relationship. I don't know what it means.

I can't talk about foreign policy like anyone who's spent their life reading and learning foreign policy. But as a citizen in a democracy, it's very important that I participate in that.

I kind of dwindled into acting.

It made me think about a whole area of human activity that was not really a concern to me before that, because I was involved in reading Chinese history, or languages, or whatever.

I started getting jobs, and I thought it was going to be real easy.

I'm a 9/11 Republican.

I do believe all actors are smart.

I had no desire from an early age to be on the stage.

Acting is not about knowing all this stuff; it's about character.

Too often in the past, U.S. leaders have forced Israel to pay the price for American strategic interests in the Middle East - through concessions in the peace process as well as passivity in the face of Iraqi attacks.

I kind of have a dilettantish spirit about me.

I think you have an obligation to be an optimist. Because if you're not, nothing will change.

It's not like I'm the most famous person in the world.

But why should I run for office and lose what little influence I have?

I've seen people with a tremendous amount of educational background in the field not turn out to be terribly good actors, and I've seen people with no education in the field turn out to be people that I admire quite a bit.

Two, I actually learned a lot of things that served me very well when it came to repeating performances on stage, because it is a craft and you do need a technique for it.

The twentieth century has exhibited a barbarism and lack of respect for human life on a massive scale just about unknown before.

Anyone who devotes time and attention to what makes people tick, to me, is a smart person.

Artists speak the truth to the public without fear of retribution or damage to their careers.

Then I realized that to be really good at this requires a lot of energy and concentration and skill.

I saw and I met a lot of people who were in the field. It also provided a context in which I came to respect what the actor did, because I saw how difficult it actually was to do.

Involvement in public affairs is a legitimate use of celebrity.

But some actors I have met possess an intelligence that I can only dream of. It's about character, it's about behavior. They understand things about people that I simply don't see.

In Europe, people in the arts are considered part of the intelligentsia; they are considered part of the elite.

Nothing gets a bigger laugh than when you refer to things like ethics or human rights.

For about the first ten years of my career, I wasn't terribly motivated.

If you don't think you want to go on a train and read the paper every day and work from nine to six at night, there was something about the uncertainty when I was younger which was very attractive.

I was immature the way I handled the business. I saw myself as a tribune of the people.

You have to think an awful lot about your motivations or people's behavioral intentions or what their body language can indicate or what's really going on or what makes people sometimes do, sometimes, the irrational things they do.

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.