Quotes

[on the popularity of M*A*S*H (1972)] I hear from people who watch six and seven times a day. It scares me.

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

Republicans are as capable of coming up with great ideas and moving this country along as anyone - they just don't do it.

What I can't completely understand is most other people's fascination with what the famous among us do with their lips and the rest of their bodies. Why do ordinary people become the target of this curiosity simply by virtue of the fact that other people recognize their names and faces but know nothing else about them? Why do we care what they think, what they wear, what they eat?

[from an interview in "Ms." magazine] 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.

We're lucky that we don't have anybody there just trying to collect the money. There's plenty of money to be had and you can get the same amount by doing junk every week. By just showing up. But you also lose your soul. What's the pleasure in losing your self-esteem, your dignity?

It's too bad I'm not as wonderful a person as people say I am, because the world could use a few people like that.

Begin challenging your assumptions. Your assumptions are the windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile or the light won't come in.

[on the death of Harry Morgan] We had just a wonderful time reminiscing. That was the last time I saw Harry.

[on his chances of winning Best Supporting Actor for The Aviator (2004)] It'll go to Morgan Freeman. No doubt in my mind.

If I could become nearly as versatile as Dad, I would be completely happy. An actor cannot be too one-sided or only half-experienced in these days when he is called upon to double in TV, legit stage plays and movies. He must be able to act anything from stylish farce to low comedy, 'Oedipus Rex' to Shakespeare and modern drama.

[acknowledging the assistance of veteran actor Howard Da Silva] (He's) a wonderfully talented actor and director who is helping me immensely by coaching me in a wide variety of good parts.

My Wikipedia page says I served in the military as a gunnery officer, but that's actually not true. I served briefly in the Army Reserve, and was deployed for about six months. They had designs of making me into an officer but, uh ... it didn't go so well. I was in charge of a mess tent. Some of that made it into the show.

Asking a director if he does his own editing is like asking a writer if he does his own punctuation.