People who laugh together generally don’t kill each other.
My relationship with science is as someone who’s curious and hungry to know, hungry to understand. So all I have to offer is my ignorance and my curiosity, which is a good combination, as long as they come together.
Our lives depend on good communication. Good communication helps personal relationships, it helps bosses and employees get along better. We rely on it.
I found I wasn’t asking good enough questions because I assumed I knew something.
Laugh at yourself, but don’t ever aim your doubt at yourself.
I’ve played a murderer, so certainly I think I can play a Republican.
I’m in this wonderful position where I can do what interests me. And whatever comes along that interests me, I do. The rest of the time I bother scientists about communicating.
Being mystified is a good beginning, because you won’t do what you’ve done before.
When your kids turn 13, an alien being invades their bodies and doesn’t leave until they’re 20.
I have thought about punching people out. Sometimes, I’ve thought, ‘Why don’t I just act on that impulse?’ But then, I’ve never hit anybody in anger. Hey! I’ve never hit anybody for fun.
I play tennis non-obsessively. I seem to beat people I play a lot or half the time, so I guess I gravitate to people who are as bad as I am.
Insanity is just a state of mind.
In the midst of the sense of tragedy or loss, sometimes laughter is not only healing, it’s a way of experiencing the person that you’ve lost again.
Jean Paul Sartre says in “No Exit” that hell is other people. Well, our task in life is to make it heaven. Or at least earth.
Awards can give you a tremendous amount of encouragement to keep getting better, no matter how young or old you are.
Nothing important was ever accomplished without chutzpah. Columbus had chutzpah. The signers of the Declaration of Independence had chutzpah. Don’t ever aim doubt at yourself. Laugh at yourself, but don’t doubt yourself.
I have a final word of advice to our students. If you work very, very hard, this is the kind of actor, writer and director you may turn out to be, and if you work extra hard, this is the kind of person you may turn out to be.
It’s better to be wise than to be smart.
Some of the greatest things, as I understand, they have come about by serendipity, the greatest discoveries.
I’ve been lucky enough to live through all the things that are supposed to give meaning to our lives, like parenting, grandparenting, art, celebrity. All these things you expect meaning to come from, and sometimes it comes when you’re not expecting it.