“They’re supposed to be gigantic explosions and they’re just these insignificant little dots. If you step back from things far enough you realize how important and powerful you are.”

That last note, “in the same respect,” says a lot. As soon as you change the frame of reference, you’ve changed the truthiness of a once immutable fact.

My mother didn’t try to stab my father until I was six, but she must have shown signs of oddness before that.

Nothing important was ever accomplished without chutzpah. Columbus had chutzpah. The signers of the Declaration of Independence had chutzpah.

Laugh at yourself, but don’t ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don’t leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.

In 2003, I almost died of an intestinal blockage when I was on a mountain in Chile, filming a segment for ‘Scientific American Frontiers.’

During the first day, curious at having outsiders among them, a long stream of inmates came over and talked with me.

I’m very interested in the improvisation because one of the things I do is to help train scientists to communicate in a better way and more personal way when they’re making a presentation, and I use improvisation to do that.

When your kids turn 13, an alien being invades their bodies and doesn’t leave until they’re 20.

Remarkably, according to what they told me, nearly every inmate in the prison didn’t do it.

If I can’t get the girl, at least give me more money.

There’s plenty of money to be had. But you also lose your soul.

What then are doing if not creating a better place together? I think, for me the key has to be, what do I want to create? What is it I want to leave behind?

As an artist, as an actor, as a writer, you have to use what’s personal to you. You have to be personal about your work; otherwise, it doesn’t ring true.

It tends to break out at unexpected times like a rare virus and mostly people with compassion and understanding are susceptible to it.

I’m an angry person, angrier than most people would imagine, I get flashes of anger.

Be brave enough to live creatively.

History has spurts and then is steady, and then maybe even backing up a step, and then forward again.

Oral traditions going back a long, long time, which I inherited by osmosis.

What is a husband? He is the one who, with a touch, can bring back the starlight and glow of years long ago. At least he hopes he can – don’t disappoint him.

They need to be on the field at running back, receiver or defensive back.

I’ll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia, I’ll even ‘hari-kari’ if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!

Our perspective on the past alters. Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground.

What is commonly called a pest is nature’s way of bringing back into balance an imbalance that man has created.

I was so scared of going back to the theatre after Hamlet. I didn’t know if I’d do a play again because I was afraid of the power of it.