Usually directors hire me because I'm what they are looking for. But once in a while, and it's very rare, they will hire me and then try to make me over.

I became very critical of zoos and circuses and keeping animals in captivity. I wish it was against the law.

I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell.

I'm better off not socializing. I make a better impression if I'm not around.

At its best, life is completely unpredictable.

There's something dangerous about what's funny. Jarring and disconcerting. There is a connection between funny and scary.

No, improvising is wonderful. But, the thing is that you cannot improvise unless you know exactly what you're doing.

I try not to worry about things I can't do anything about.

We have no way of knowing what lays ahead for us in the future. All we can do is use the information at hand to make the best decision possible.

I play so many villains and strange, troubled people. I don't have that kind of life. I live in the country. I've been married nearly 50 years. I have a cat.

My father was a lesson. He had his own bakery, and it was closed one day a week, but he would go anyway. He did it because he really loved his bakery. It wasn't a job.

success awaits those who steadfastly commit to any requisite sacrifice

Other than that, we have each told the truth, and each truth is our own.

Every kid I knew had a father with a little stash of men's magazines which the father thought was secret and which the kid knew all about.

As I paint, I realise, while it's something I do very much by myself, it's very solitary, the creative process feels similar to making music to me now, at least as far as my brain is concerned.

A really companionable and indispensable dog is an accident of nature. You can't get it by breeding for it, and you can't buy it with money. It just happens along.

Venice is beautiful, but like a Bergman movie is beautiful; you can admire it, but you don't really want to live in it.

We teachers are rather good at magic, you know.

Dr. Cox mentors the rookie doctors with a spoonful of dirt and then a cup of sugar. I see him as an archetypal descendent of two of my favorite curmudgeonly characters: Lou Grant and Louie De Palma.

I see myself as a comedian rather than a female comedian. I happen to be a woman, but I am a comedian by trade.

I tend to think that knowledge is preceded by power instead of the other way around.