“Working on The West Wing was similar in many ways to my experience on M*A*S*H, because you had people willing to work late at night to get it just right.”

We’re highly social animals – I’m told by scientists that what makes us different from other animals is an acute social awareness, which is what has made us so successful.

What works for me is working out when it’s useful to use that anger.

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.

Insanity is just a state of mind.

I used to be a Catholic. I left because I object to conversion by concussion. If you don’t agree with what they teach, you get clobbered over the head until you do. All that does is change the shape of the head.

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!

What I always wanted to get seen as was as a good actor, when it was the acting I was doing.

What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.

When I’m willing to let them change me, something happens between us that’s more interesting than a pair of dueling monologues.

Some of the greatest things, as I understand, they have come about by serendipity, the greatest discoveries

I’ve sat looking down into a volcano that could blow at any moment; I’ve helped catch a shark and several rattlesnakes;

Listening is being able to be changed by the other person.

You’ll be a lot less likely to be caught up in bias or prejudice or be influenced by people who ask you to hand over your brains, your soul or your money because they have everything all figured out for you.

There are two things that I get a lot of pleasure from in my life, and that is, doing what I know how to do well – that really makes me happy.

I’m greedy for that satisfaction of doing something hard and knowing that, even though I was afraid I couldn’t do it, that somehow I can deliver.

I wouldn’t live in California. All that sun makes you sterile.