Everything I experience influences everything I do.

Singing in Yiddish was a great thrill for me and came about through Joe Papp, the founder of The Public Theater.

Isaac and I are going to Israel to ride for peace enviromental justice and a safer world for us all.

But I loved the theatre and I was just doing theatre 24/7 and kept dropping courses because I didn't have the time and the chancellor thought that wasn't a good idea after awhile.

I wanted to go to a liberal arts college, I wanted to have that experience.

We did a different show every night. We'd open a show, and then two weeks later we'd open the next show. And two weeks later we'd open the third show until we had all eight running. And it was just one of the richest experiences I'd ever had in my theatrical life.

I'm on the board of directors for Peace Now, which works tirelessly between the Palestinians and the Israelis to create peace in the Middle East and we've never been closer.

I try to get that across in the work, to try to, if I'm lucky, to make this world a little bit better for all of us before I check out. And that's if I'm lucky, I don't always get to have that privilege but I try always.

Sondheim is the Shakespeare of the musical theater world.

When you work on a text of a lesser quality, as the interpreter or the delivery person, you are obliged to try to fill it out as you see so many people do in lesser work.

You rarely pay the rent by doing Shakespeare or Ibsen.

I'm just an actor. I am nothing special.

I got married because I wanted to do something that was more than I understood, because my feelings were more than I understood.

In my prayers every day, which are a combination of Hebrew prayers and Shakespeare and Sondheim lyrics and things people have said to me that I've written down and shoved in my pocket, I also say the name of every person I've ever known who's passed on.

The great love of my life is music.

Movies were a struggle for me - they didn't come easy.

I have no problem with violence, I have no problem playing horrible people.

I think it's fair to say I'm attracted to playing characters who are rather intense.

I'm an obsessive person. I like intensity.

I'm Jewish and I can sing and I'm alive.

I desperately want to see the day today and do the best I can not miss a shred of sunlight. It'll be over before I know it.

I'm lyrically driven, I'm not musically driven.

So I'm truly an actor who sings, and not a singer who acts.

I have the strength from my mother, the survivability. I have wonderful qualities from my mother - but please, Mother, forgive me - I heard judgment constantly about my father.

During 'Chicago Hope,' I never let directors talk to me, because I was so spoiled. I started off with people like Milos Forman, Sidney Lumet, James Lapine, unbelievably gifted people. So there I was, saying, 'Don't talk to me, I don't want your opinion.' I behaved abominably.

One of the greatest gifts that 'Homeland' has given me is it's affirming on a daily basis.

The biggest public mistake I ever made was that I chose to do 'Criminal Minds' in the first place.

My inner motivation is to make the world a better place; the bad guy and the good guy think the same thing.

If you're sick, watch funny movies.

The songs I love to sing are story songs, from Yiddish songs to Tom Waits.

When I'm on the road with concerts, people ask me to autograph my CDs, but more and more they come up with the cookbooks.

I have never been asked to be in a movie musical. Other than 'Yentl,' which I didn't sing in.

The great fun for me is these collaborators. I'm nothing by myself. Being with these people, whether it's the 'Homeland' cast or stage collaborators, they make you everything you are. They make you come to work. They make you be alive.

My wife will tell you that if you feel my hands before I walk on for a performance, you could chill a bottle of wine.

I'm not frightened about terrorism. I'm frightened about the roots of what we call terrorism.

In the hands of good writers, you have the opportunity to present both sides of an opinion equally and that you leave it to the audience to listen and then make up their own minds.

Peace in the Middle East isn't going to be created by another war or violent act on the other side.

I moved to New York to go to Julliard Drama School. Didn't sing a single note of music.

I never publicise in advance what I'm going to be singing because I never quite know until I start. I often change my mind halfway through. I sometimes throw in stuff about politics or Shakespeare or do songs in Yiddish.

Actually, the language in Shakespeare is wonderfully musical. You need to hear the music to connect with the words.

I guess I am sometimes over the top on stage, but then, that is my personality. I'm over the top in real life, too.

I've always been someone who some people like and some people don't like.

He was a great man. He taught himself how to walk again, to write with his left hand. My father was a hero.

I saw an interview that I did with someone, and I was horrified by it. And I said to my wife, 'This is unbearable how I talk.'

I'm in a constant state of gratitude.

I didn't live far from where Leopold and Loeb lived on Chicago's South Side, so I had heard about them as a kid.

I did not grow up singing Yiddish.

Even if it's a wonderful life, you wanna go somewhere and see the way other people reflect on the world and the lives that we're all living... I think regional theater is the life blood of our cultural lives.

I just want other people to know the kind of joy that I have in my life. I want other people to be able to have fun.

Sometimes, trying to make a work of art can be very difficult and very painful.