The first long chapter of my career was almost entirely theater so that, by the time I was 30, 35, I sort of knew who I was as an actor, and I was gradually learning who I was as a human being.

One of the problems in our lives is that people from different segments of our society just don't communicate with each other, nor do you ever see entertainment where they communicate with each other and fight with each other.

I never get tired of hearing compliments.

If it's well written and well directed and you've got good actors to work with, acting is easy. But making sure all the ducks are in a row is the hard part. It's very rare.

When I was 13 years old, I went to visit my aunt and uncle in Washington, D.C., and they just deposited me at the National Gallery. I would go from Rembrandt to Picasso - I remember that experience so vividly.

I'm a con artist in that I'm an actor. I make people believe something is real when they know perfectly well it isn't.

Look at the darkest hit musicals - Cabaret, West Side Story, Carousel - they are exuberant experiences. They send you out of the theater filled with music.

I'm too much of a Libra. I too often see the other person's point of view and capitulate, even though I have strong political convictions. It's just my liability. Maybe I'm too empathetic. That's the actor in me.

Voice work is fun. But about three-quarters of the things you enjoy about acting are just not there. You're not working with another actor; you're not working with an audience. You're just working with a bunch of writers and a microphone. It's very abstract.

In 1995, I proposed the Harvard Arts Medal. The idea was to celebrate the fact that, although it's rare, Harvard men and women do go into the creative arts. Over the years we've had major, major figures, like Jack Lemmon, John Updike, Yo-Yo Ma, and Bonnie Raitt.

My eagerness to please sometimes gets the better of me.

To my mum, I owe security in a very insecure young life. We lived in about 10 different places because of my father's chequered career, and she always made me feel a sense of consistency and security. I was a well-mothered boy.

The essence of comedy, drama, and horror is surprise. I have an uncanny ability to surprise people because they look at my face, and they don't know where I'm going.

My worst audition was for Tim Burton for 'Batman.'

I do all the cooking in the family. I cook Italian, mostly, pastas and roasts, and bit by bit, I'm learning how to bake. I think cooking is a gift to other people.

I'm getting older, but better, too. And the roles are getting better.

I really prize and love great painting.

We moved around a lot when I was growing up. I was always the new kid in class, but I was good at making friends. With an upbringing like that, I was either going to become an actor or a politician. Thank God I became an actor! I'm not cut out for politics.

'M. Butterfly' is usually the answer to the question, 'What has been your favorite experience?' The reason being, it is an astonishing play.

Up there with my awards, I have a great big statue of Groucho Marx, just to put everything in perspective.

There is less difference than you would imagine entertaining little children and entertaining adults.

I went to - I got a wonderful college education. I went to Harvard. In those four years, I accumulated a lot of knowledge, but I also created a kind of habit of learning that has stayed with me my whole life.

I'm an avid Boston Red Sox fan.

Everybody's a dreamer.

I'm very concerned for the future of the earth and its amazing creatures. We've got to be careful and make sure we don't foul our own nest.

If you go through your life being completely truthful, everybody will hate you, and something I deeply fear is being hated.

We're in the business of using real emotions to bring pretend emotions to life.

When you end a successful sitcom, the most sensible thing to do is go back to the theater.

I'm probably a better granddad than dad because your role as a grandfather is to be fun, and I'm fun.

I owe my whole career as a storyteller to my father. He was an actor/director/producer and teacher.

When I was a teenager, I remember the extraordinary feeling of accomplishment for completing 'Vanity Fair.' I don't think it was even for school.

My sense of myself is that I'm a character actor, and character actors are ready, willing, and able to do anything, to be totally different from themselves. That's my job, to be ready. I'm some kind of first responder.

I work very hard on motivating everything I do as an actor. Explosive moments have to be completely motivated; whether they're explosive comedy or explosive horror, they have to come organically out of a scene and an interaction with another actor.

I eat way too fast.

The Wodehouse language is so rich and detailed and hilarious.

I was married very young. I lived a very middle class life. I was married at age 21, divorced at 31.

I'm a lazy actor, lazier than you would think. I don't usually do a lot of research.

Actors are not necessarily smart people.

There's nothing like spending an evening with an audience every night.

I'd sleep under a Vermeer.

If a film is about love, it tends to be about tortured love or discovering love or young love. It's not this wonderful kind of comfortable, old resilient love.

One of the things you learn as an actor is that human beings are capable of almost anything. I'm sort of in the business of illustrating that fact.

I'm a very hopeful person. I mean, I'm an optimistic person, sometimes stupidly optimistic.

In TV and movies, you get known for a certain thing, and that's what's expected. Onstage, people are more open to whatever character you create from one play to the next.

Grown adults often tell me that they used to sit, as children with their parents, and watch '3rd Rock from the Sun,' and they would all enjoy it for completely different reasons. I think that's part of the magic of the show.

The way I approach acting when there's a real life character, it's sort of like a Venn diagram. What I come up with is some amalgam of the two of us.

I tell young people, including my own kids, don't do this, it's too difficult. It's a career full of rejection, disappointment and failure. It's murderously hard on the ego. Don't become an actor.

I'm a very slow and ponderous reader, but I'm dogged.

I am such a coward when it comes to political arguments. I tend to sort of recoil rather than engage.

My hairline is receding. So my days as a romantic lead - even though I've never had them - are behind me.