It would have been nice for Greg to eventually grow into a mature relationship with Laura. He was moving toward that already but then took a turn into the juvenile with Paige.

What I would have liked to do on that show was play a secretary of state who has huge personal business interests throughout the world. That, to me, seems to be more in synch with reality.

There's a certain possessiveness of writers sometimes.

It would have been nice for Greg to eventually grow into a mature relationship with Laura. He was moving toward that already but then took a turn into the juvenile with Paige.

And I have to credit David Jacobs with the opportunities he gave me. He was totally into sharing the creation of characters. David put together a show that told the story of people over many years' time and that was greatly enjoyable. Though nowadays that is frowned upon.

A show like Knots or any other show that can be called a soap opera does terribly in syndication because if you're a viewer and you miss a week you don't know what's going on.

It worked well because Don Murray didn't want to be on Knots anymore.

Ultimately the Emmys are a popularity contest.

Writers are not always right however, but then again, I've been on shows where the actors have complete control and change everything and it's terrible.

When you go to a movie, it's about what's not being said. I tried to bring that to Greg Sumner. It was always about what's not being said.

I didn't care about that because I'm not a diplomatic person to begin with. I just went along with things and did what I wanted to do because I knew they had to shoot their 12 pages a day. And when they realized that I didn't alter the text they really didn't mind what I did.

David was the kind of guy who was totally supportive of the actors and instructed the writing staff to trust the actor's instincts, since after all, it's the actors playing the character.

The West Wing seems to be feeding the myth about how presidential politics are.

I knew with The West Wing that that wasn't going to be for very long, that I was just the red herring.

I try to watch only real things, which basically amounts to C-Span for me. I like real people in real situations. I learn from that.

If you watch Cheers, in 12 years they didn't age a day.

And all of Laura's stuff, what they wrote originally wasn't as good and Constance wound up doing that herself. That was all her stuff, reading to the child, because she had children herself and that's what she would have done.

Even though shows like NYPD Blue are soaps in my opinion, but they're individualized to an extent that you can still follow what's going on if you miss a week.

Donna Mills came on the show as a female antagonist, about a year before, so now they wanted to have a male antagonist. I was cast as a Senator to shake things up.

I would fix other people's lines if they asked me on occasion. The hard part of writing is the architecture of it, getting the story and structuring it. Not the tweaking of lines.

At one time, whenever the hell it was, they wanted a character to come in and stir up the pot. They brought me in for 8-10 episodes and said we'll try it for that.

The business is built on slowing or even stopping the aging process.

I'm trying to find a character that's my age and I can sustain week after week. I'd like to do a series.

Networks don't want a show with a continuing story. There's no backend potential.

Clint Eastwood is aging beautifully. But someone like Burt Reynolds and others are practically destroying their faces in the amount of work they have.

The same issue is happening on a show like Everybody Loves Raymond now, which is in its eighth year and struggling to come up with good stories. It'll be interesting to see how they do. The bottom line is, it starts with the writers and ends with the writers.

I don't play polo anymore because I am too old. But we still have a half a dozen horses - a couple of young horses we are teaching how to play polo and older horses that are real trustworthy when you get them up in the mountains.

I like people who are loyal to me and I like to be loyal too.

Divorce is the start point for a brand new life. Don't lose the chance to redesign it upon your dreams!

Mr. Mijanovi and those associated with him are the hope and the conscience of the Yugoslav revolution.

I want to protect my vision, and that's the hardest thing.

It's great meeting children because you never know what they will say.

Lying is not only saying what isn't true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels. We all do it, every day, to make life simpler.

The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others' burdens, easing other's loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas.

I just had a normal African childhood; we played football a lot, but it was always in the street and always without shoes. Boots were very expensive, and when there are seven in your family, and you say you want to buy a pair, your father wants to kill you.

I know places you better speak low if you've been to college. Men will come across the room and cold-deck you if you hold your glass wrong.

Father's Day each year makes me grateful for what my father did for me. This has little to do with our relationship, and much to do with what he taught me.

Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

How did the Oscar change my life? What it did was that it gave me a new reality. And it let me know that an award wasn't going to change my life - that I had to be in control of changing my life.

I was a child prodigy. Like Michelangelo, who could draw a perfect circle at age five. I was extremely gifted. I could paint a perfect portrait of someone at age five.

I am one of the biggest Laura Nyro fans. I still listen to that stuff incessantly. Laura Nyro does not belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Songwriter Hall of Fame? Absolutely.

Morality is not only taught; it is caught.

My approach is just fearless. I'm not afraid to try anything.

If a man urge me to tell wherefore I loved him, I feel it cannot be expressed but by answering: Because it was he, because it was myself.

I promised each and every Hulkamaniac when I went to that great battlefield in the sky I would bring the WWF title with me.

The Y2K problem is not caused by technical limitations. We simply forgot to think of the problem.

I believe that what woman resents is not so much giving herself in pieces as giving herself purposelessly.

He who sings prays twice.

Sick children, if not too shy to speak, will always express this wish. They invariably prefer a story to be told to them, rather than read to them.