I didn't want to play a lawyer. I didn't want to play a doctor. I didn't want to play a single dad. I wanted to do something I felt I could learn from, something that would be a challenge and something that would not dry up.

Grissom is pretty asexual. He's not that interested in anything other than work - except for Lady Heather. She's the closest to getting his heart of anyone.

The beard is here because I got tired of shaving and Grissom, subsequently, got tired of shaving. Grissom, like any other 50-year-old man, is going through a series of mid-life changes. Who knows, he may start drinking.

I had panic attacks during rehearsal. There were times when I really thought I wasn't going to be able to do it.

I think you can find yourself on one of these shows for a long period of time and think that all you'll ever be able to do is that character. Certainly people think of you that way.

I won't miss Grissom. It was a complete life for me that's reached its end, and it's reached it in the right way, I think. So I won't miss Grissom. And I hope that the audience won't miss him either.

I want to live and work in Chicago for the rest of my life. You know when you were growing up and you wanted to become president? What I want now is to be mayor of this damned town in ten years.

I've never been in this business for the recognition or the awards. I just want to do good work, grab a decent paycheck, and move onto the next job.

The show can go on without me, and probably will, but I want to come back to act in Chicago. My wife and I just bought a condo downtown, and I want to do theater.

I've been telling anybody who would listen that I wanted to do a series for the last 10 years. But I wouldn't do it if I was just another cop pushing bad guys up against the wall.

Theater in Chicago will always be my first love. It started careers for me and about 50 of my friends. We all love coming back. As soon as the TV show is over, I'll be back in Chicago, doing live theater.

Now I'm seen by more people in one episode than I was in 20 years of theatre and movies. It's gratifying to have an impact on 25 million people a night, but I can say goodbye to my lunch-pail life as a working actor. I'm scared I might be a celebrity.

Sure, I always chose rebels to identify with - I still do - but to me a rebel isn't so much someone who breaks the law as someone who goes against the odds.

I was horrible at science and math. I couldn't pass a test to save my life! I'm surprised that it didn't take me until I was 20 to graduate. That's why my role is so cool - Grissom is the complete opposite of me.

Grissom comes from a place where we know he had a deaf mother, he was raised in a silent household, on some level, had a father who potentially was not around and he learned what he knew by himself in the back yard, with bugs and animals. He's not comfortable being a supervisor and that's his problem.

Basically, we are a whole world of people desperately trying to figure out what is the dark side of our natures and how much can we explore without becoming something else.

If I stayed a football player, my career would have been over 20 years ago. As it is, my knees are shot. I found I got the same good feeling in acting that I had in sports, but I found I could have a more profound impact on people.

When we get involved in the ratings, then we're doing the network's job. We need to focus on our work.

Grissom is a character who doesn't really want people poking around in his life. He likes to poke around in his work.

If I could change on thing about myself, I would: Have better knees. Mine are shot because of injuries. You're only as good as your legs, whether you're an athlete or an actor.

Corporate Hollywood thinks I'm a geek to go back and do theater. They don't understand why I don't want to be a movie star, why I'm not pursuing Mel Gibson's roles.

We knew all along we were making a good show, so its success was not a surprise to me. What has surprised me is the magnitude of this show's success. More people see me now in one episode than saw me in 20 years of movies and theater!

One of the things I love about theater, one of the reasons I'll never give it up, is that it's fifty percent the audience's responsibility.

I didn't want to play a lawyer. I didn't want to play a doctor. I didn't want to play a single dad. I wanted to do something I felt I could learn from, something that would be a challenge and something that would not dry up.

Roosevelt's magic lay in one facet of his personality: He knew how to take the risk. No other man in public life I knew could so readily take the challenge of the new.

To do the Ozzfest again would be great. I'd like to finish with a final Sabbath album. You always feel that it is still a challenge.

People are not perfect... very often the relationships that are strongest are those where people have worked through big crises, but they've had to work through them. So the challenge to us is to work through that.

Every single book is a challenge.

Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.

The lopsided attitudes of college professors pose a serious challenge to learning because students are so susceptible to becoming lopsided sheep.

I really enjoy comedy. It's a real challenge.

I had a hard time with that hockey. I hadn't grown up skating, so that was my biggest challenge. We worked on it and worked on it. But then when we first shot it, it was so hard for me.

The challenge is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible.

Change can either challenge or threaten us. Your beliefs pave your way to success or block you.

My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people. Mindsets play strange tricks on us. We see things the way our minds have instructed our eyes to see.

I'd say that it's important for music to be there that gives you a challenge, that rearranges things in your head.

I like good stories. Quality products and character are what's important. Even if the script isn't that strong, if I challenge myself with a great character, I'll go for it.

I tend to arrive in the rehearsal process with very strongly developed ideas about what I want to do. But I don't like those ideas to be things that are not subject to change, or subject to development, or subject to challenge.

I'm not looking to set a standard... but, I believe I have offered a challenge to others with my work.

If you live a life of make-believe, your life isn't worth anything until you do something that does challenge your reality. And to me, sailing the open ocean is a real challenge, because it's life or death.

And, I'd never done Tennessee Williams, and I had done Broadway musicals, so it was a challenge.

When you remove the risk, you remove the challenge. When you remove the challenge, you wither on the vine.

After Land I wanted to continue exploring the theme but I needed a new challenge so turned to colour. I explored Bradford and produced a series of urban landscapes that I liked, but because Land had made such an impact on the general public my colour work wasn't reviewed.

The worlds I paint leave a lot to engage the imagination by hinting at what lies beyond the four edges of the painting. I think getting beyond the four edges of an opportunity or challenge is one of the basic skills you need in business.

For me, it's a bigger challenge, it's much harder to do and much more rewarding to do well, then just to think up stuff of your own, hit or miss, because you've got to see to it that you don't torpedo any of his punch lines.

This same habitual blindness to spiritual, substantive dimensions of every significant challenge continues to handicap Hollywood.

Every artist has to grow, and has to challenge themselves with a new form of expression.

The next challenge for Christianity is to remind Europeans that we are called to seek the truth.

Give yourself an even greater challenge than the one you are trying to master and you will develop the powers necessary to overcome the original difficulty.