I have an iPad and I watch three things: 'The Daily Show,' '60 Minutes,' and 'Meet the Press.'

Acting forces me to socialise, which is good for me, I think.

Acting is a weird, kind of alienating job because you're in an isolated place. Even if you're working with a lot of other people, you're kind of alienated. Actors say that a lot, and I kind of find that to be true.

I'm not on Page Six, because I don't have anything salacious happening in my life... unfortunately.

I tend to be pessimistic about everything: If things seem to be going good, I'm worried that it's going to end; if things are bad, then I'm worried that it's going to be permanent. It's not a very comfortable attitude to have all the time.

The ideal way to approach a character is to find something in yourself that relates in some way.

I feel very guilty doing magic because you're deceiving somebody.

My job when I'm acting in a movie is very limited to playing a role. I'm not evaluating somebody. I'm only evaluating them insofar as they're interacting with me, but I'm not evaluating their skill set and I don't watch the movies, so I'm not aware of the way they're putting things together.

It's really hard to copy another actor and be successful. In fact, that's usually the reason people are not good, because they're copying something they've seen, but, for some reason with their face and their body, it doesn't work.

You can tell when you watch a movie, usually, what the actors' experience was on the movie, because even the smallest of roles were interesting.

My feeling is... when you show up to a movie set where there's, like, 50 people standing around and months of preparation gone into it, you want to be as prepared as possible, so you should make a million baguettes. That might not actually help in any explicit way, but it'll make you feel more prepared.

It's a struggle for me to watch things I've been in because I'm just distracted and self-critical.

Actors dread working with studios because they dictate what you do in a way that independent movies can't.

The only suggestions I get on my plays is to make them more of what they already are, and that's wonderful.

I see writing and acting as different parts of the same continuum. Writing is better for intense emotion. If you're very angry about something, you shouldn't present it as strongly when you're acting. But if you're really angry and writing about it, that's the best way to get it out and across.

I don't concern myself with thinking ahead to the finished product. I focus more specifically on what the character is experiencing. Once you relieve yourself of the very arbitrary and always punishing pressure of what an audience is expecting you to do, acting becomes a lot more fun and pure.

I always think the second worst thing in the world is to go on stage at night, and the first worst thing in the world is sitting at home at night. For me, it's scarier to not be doing it than doing it.

Who walks around proud of things they've done? That's an obnoxious quality.

I feel equal parts lucky and scared anytime I get a job.

I felt self-conscious going out in the street prior to ever even being in a movie. That's just me.

The happiest moments for me, creatively, are doing readings of a play around a table where there's no audience.

I write all the time because I'm lonely. When you're acting, you're working every day all day. But then you have long amounts of time off.

If you fall behind, run faster. Never give up, never surrender, and rise up against the odds.

Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up.

At the end of the day, we must go forward with hope and not backward by fear and division.

Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change.

What is the American dream? The American dream is one big tent. One big tent. And on that big tent you have four basic promises: equal protection under the law, equal opportunity, equal access, and fair share.

Keep hope alive!

Your children need your presence more than your presents.

Today's students can put dope in their veins or hope in their brains. If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude.

I was born in a slum, but the slum wasn't born in me.

In politics, an organized minority is a political majority.

If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.

Time is neutral and does not change things. With courage and initiative, leaders change things.

I am not a perfect servant. I am a public servant doing my best against the odds. As I develop and serve, be patient. God is not finished with me yet.

Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy.

Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day.

If there are occasions when my grape turned into a raisin and my joy bell lost its resonance, please forgive me. Charge it to my head and not to my heart.

No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams.

It is time for us to turn to each other, not on each other.

If you don't know what tomorrow holds, you need to know who holds tomorrow!

Success needs no explanation. Failure does not have one that matters.

America is not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, one cloth.

Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.

If you run, you might lose. If you don't run, you're guaranteed to lose.

When we're unemployed, we're called lazy; when the whites are unemployed it's called a depression.

Our dreams must be stronger than our memories. We must be pulled by our dreams, rater than pushed by our memories.

I hear that melting-pot stuff a lot, and all I can say is that we haven't melted.

Life has its dimensions in the mysterious.

In many ways, history is marked as 'before' and 'after' Rosa Parks. She sat down in order that we all might stand up, and the walls of segregation came down.