A lot of directors straight out of film school are very technically minded, but they don't have an understanding of actors or how to talk to them.

You'd be surprised how condescending people can be.

Every person my size has a different life, a different history. Different ways of dealing with it. Just because I'm seemingly O.K. with it, I can't preach how to be O.K. with it. I don't think I still am O.K. with it. There's days when I'm not.

I'm a private person in many ways.

I think actors get too comfortable. I like being uncomfortable as an actor because it keeps you alive. I don't know, I think it's important.

I knew David Benioff a bit socially. I knew his wife, Amanda Peet. He's a smart guy, so I always sought him out at dinner parties.

My favourite superhero? I have a soft spot for Batman, because he doesn't have any super powers - he's just a person. And he's pretty dark.

The greatest preparation for a TV show is to already have one season behind you.

I guess the word to call me is my name, Pete.

I was a sullen kid who smoked cigarettes and wore black every day, and I went to a school that was lacrosse players and Izods.

Animals used for food are treated like unfeeling machinery.

I dress and eat like a fifth-grader, basically. I like sandwiches and cereal and hooded sweatshirts.

Call me a midget, but just be real. I am all for correct terms, but please don't tiptoe around feelings. Don't be too careful, because that shuts you off from people.

I would love to play Richard III.

There are a lot of directors out there who are very specific, visual craftsmen, and while I have the utmost respect for that, they don't really communicate with the actors.

I never know where women are coming from.

I love working with the same actors repeatedly. That happens a lot. It's kind of inevitable, especially if you work with the same writers and directors and you start to form a company of actors. You gravitate towards each other.

I don't socialize. I'm kind of a hermit. The life of an actor can be very lonely.

I should call people back more readily. I'm not the best friend sometimes in terms of that. I do follow that white balloon and get distracted a lot.

'Game of Thrones' is an amazing show, and I have no problem speaking of the virtues of HBO.

I think my mom drove by a nuclear power plant when she was pregnant. But I wouldn't be in 'The Station Agent' if she hadn't.

I spend my nights just sitting and reading a book and drinking my tea and walking my dog. That's about as exciting as my life gets.

I was fortunate enough to have an upbringing that made me more accepting of who I am.

I do not fault anyone else who makes choices to play characters that they wished they hadn't... Because at the end of the day, none of us are happy with our jobs all the time.

I like playing the guy on the sidelines. They have more fun.

My family had a habit of collecting creatures that didn't always want to be pets. The first animal I can remember was a Lab named Zoe.

My idea of Heaven is to wake up, have a good breakfast, and spend the rest of the day drawing.

The entertainment industry is loaded with extraordinarily talented people. But the true, genuine originals, they're rare.

When I was growing up in Ossining, N.Y., playing pool with the guys, the thought that any one of us might become an actor was as far-fetched as being knighted by the queen of England.

It became the joke of the neighbourhood. If the umpire ruled me out on a bad call, I'd take the fake eye out and hand it to him.

I hate to talk about typecasting, because being typecast as Columbo ain't cancer.

God didn't design anyone to be recognized by 2 billion people.

I had two ambitions: One was to be in The Actors Studio, and the other was to walk into a bar where actors hung out, and everyone would know that I was a professional actor and I would be accepted.

The truth is, no one is like Columbo.

I'm not an ace at small talk.

Children ran up to me shouting, 'Columbo!' At first, it gave me great pleasure, but later, I said to myself that those children should have had their own heroes instead of admiring a cop from Los Angeles.

When I go see a basketball game, I'm always in the front row. I always have a table at a restaurant; I never have trouble getting a taxi.

I lose things. I am preoccupied. I am misty. Eyeglasses? I go through eyeglasses like tissue.

My father's whole life was work. He had a retail store in Ossining, New York, and I mean, he was down there at 6:15 every morning. The store didn't open until 9, but he hadda be down there. That's all he knew.

In order to be totally spontaneous, you can't be too obsessed with accuracy, but if you're inaccurate in a drawing, it will look fake, and when you act, it will sound fake. You have to find miraculously some proper balance between the two, but there's no formula.

I'm makin' a lotta dough, everyone knows who you are, and who the hell cares whether you're typecast or not? Also, there's something wrong with complaining about being typecast in something you really enjoy doing.

Hartford had the Mark Twain Masquers, which was fantastic. They had been in business I don't know how many years. They knew how to build sets and sell tickets and put on a play. My day started at night. When I left the office, that's when my day began.

I thought actors were artists and that artists had to be European.

I wanted to become an actor, but I didn't want to admit it.

I've never worried about the grand concepts.

The only mountain that I would still like to climb: I'd like to break 85.

It helps an actor an awful lot when he looks like the part. There's nothing more disconcerting, that makes you more anxious or more insecure, than when you don't look like who you're supposed to be.

Actors know one thing: If you're left just with words, you're in trouble.

What's the name of that famous museum in Paris? The Louvre? I went through that place in 20 minutes.

They wouldn't take me in the navy because of my glass eye. So I joined the merchant navy, who allowed monocular crew if you worked in the kitchens. You're not wanted on deck or in the engine room with one eye, but you're good to fire up the ovens and cook hundreds of chops.