“Don Knotts won five Emmy Awards for Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role by an Actor or Actress in a Series [in Andy Griffith Show] in 1961, 1962, 1963, 1966 and 1967.”

Andy was always fun and liked to tease. Don was nothing like Barney. Don was very quiet, which shows what a good actor he was.

I still stay in touch with Elinor Donahue. I’ve known Elinor since she was 14-years-old.

One reason [of Andy Griffith Show popularity] is because of the formula. It had comedy, but it also had tender moments. The other reason is because it was therapeutic. It helped people relax and unwind.

Some months I don’t feel too good and I think maybe I won’t go, but then when I go and get to be there with so many wonderful people it always lifts my spirits and makes me feel better. I wouldn’t stand in line for hours to meet me, but I’m so glad my fans do.

I did appear on other popular TV shows, like Family Affair, My Three Sons, Barnaby Jones and Little House on the Prairie.

Twenty years after the Andy Griffith Show when Andy did Matlock, he hired me for four episodes. I told him I wanted to develop an Aunt Bea type role for Matlock, but he was against it.

I would do an episode in two days and I got paid $500. After all the federal, state and local taxes were taken out and then my agent’s commission I only got $200 some dollars per episode.

I think the show has so many wonderful memories connected to it for lots of people. When fans come to see me at the Andy Griffith Museum they get so emotional. Some of them cry, lots of them hug me and some want a kiss on the cheek.

Don Knotts left [Andy Griffith Show] to pursue a movie career, so once he was gone I left too.

Andy [Griffith] and I spoke on the phone not too long before he died. I told him I loved him and he told me he loved me. He was a wonderful man.

I love to meet people for lunch at my favorite restaurant, the Loaded Goat. It is named after the Andy Griffith Show episode where a goat ate a bunch of dynamite.

I was under contract with Walt Disney at the time. I was co-starring in my second season of a show called, Texas John Slaughter. The Andy Griffith Show hired me to play Thelma Lou. I only worked when they called me.

They were all wonderful [on Andy Griffith Show], but I enjoyed Andy and Don and Ron the most. Ron played little Opie so well. He really took acting seriously and worked hard to deliver his lines well.

Like the actor, authority has faith in its false whiskers. But its deepest faith is in the human illusion. People will hang on to illusion as eagerly as life itself.

As an actor there’s no autonomy, unless you’re prepared to risk the possibility of starving.

I was fortunate as a young actor, to go straight to the RSC, where I learned that being an actor can bring with it wonderful responsibilities.

Craig Nelson who is an actor and is in a show called Coach in the United States. We began to do some improvisational stuff and we used to get laughs and things.

Some of my oldest friends are actors. But that’s not the only place my friends come from.

Johnny Depp is one of my favorite actors because he takes chances.

To have a songwriter that wrote so specifically what I felt to be true… I’ve never been much of an actor either. If something is real for me, then I can do it.

You don’t have a lot of time to massage a scene into oblivion. It’s like you do it, you get a couple of good takes, and then you move on, so you have to be very spontaneous as an actor and have done your homework, and I like that.