You can't be aware of everything. You'd fall down the stairs if you were aware of every intricate thing involved in going down stairs.
If scientists can't communicate with the public, with policy makers, with one another, the future is going to be held back. We're not going to have the future that we could have.
I found I wasn't asking good enough questions because I assumed I knew something. I would box them into a corner with a badly formed question, and they didn't know how to get out of it. Now, I let them take me through it step by step, and I listen.
You can't get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you're doing. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself.
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.
I don't miss directing at all, and I don't miss screenwriting either because somebody's always telling you to do something different.
Listening is being able to be changed by the other person.
After a while I started to think of that as an image of something that went a lot deeper than the dead dog, which is you can't bring back anything to life.
Awards can give you a tremendous amount of encouragement to keep getting better, no matter how young or old you are.
When I am at a dinner table, I love to ask everybody, 'How long do you think our species might last?' I've read that the average age of a species, of any species, is about two million years. Is it possible we can have an average life span as a species? And do you picture us two million years more or a million and a half years, or 5,000?
The hardest thing for me about making movies, and that included 'M*A*S*H' because it was made like a movie, was starting and stopping.
There is a wonderful feeling of power when you're a director, but I don't think I need that, and I'm OK without it.
The idea that the brain is not fully formed until you are almost 30 years old has already been introduced, and the Supreme Court already has based two rulings on it.
Backstage life is terrific training for an actor, seeing shows from the wings.
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.
The meaning of life is life.
I'm most at home on the stage.
Really top-notch directors, I've often worked with them just to see how they work.
We need to be more conversant with it because science is in our lives. It's in everything. It's in the food we eat. It's in the air we breathe. It's everywhere.
Blind dates are treacherous. You don't know who this person is. You wonder, 'Should I call my grandma during coffee to get out of this?'
Whenever I think of how much pleasure I have interviewing scientists, I remember that they're having the real fun in actually being able to do the science.
If scientists could communicate more in their own voices - in a familiar tone, with a less specialized vocabulary - would a wide range of people understand them better? Would their work be better understood by the general public, policy-makers, funders, and, even in some cases, other scientists?
Any play is hard to write, and plays are getting harder and harder to get on the stage.
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.
My background is on the stage, so when I'd write movies, they'd be a lot like plays.
I must have interviewed 600 or 700 scientists all around the world.
I'm most at home on the stage. I was carried onstage for the first time when I was six months old.
You wouldn't want to be called a sell-out by selling a product. Selling out was frowned on, whereas now you can major in it at business school.
To do a musical takes a tremendous amount of energy because you have to act and sing at the same time. And everything has to be precise. Because you can't forget the lyrics because the band keeps playing, you know, and you're under a certain amount of pressure.
I was always interested in figuring things out. I'd do experiments, like combining things I found around the house to see what would happen if I put them together.
No matter how big the audience is going to be. I'm interested in doing things that are fun.
I think I look better in a suit than a loincloth. So that may define some of the parts I play.
I've sat looking down into a volcano that could blow at any moment; I've helped catch a shark and several rattlesnakes; I let a tarantula walk across my hand, and I ate rat soup.
I'm condemned by some inner compulsion to think about the daily rituals of my life. I have a low grade fever for improving myself in many ways, including everyday tasks.
No, I never thought about my image. It interests me that there are people who do, that they seem to be methodical about it.
When I was in high school, I fell under the spell of that crazy idea that if you're interested in the arts, you can't be interested in science.
I've been nominated twice before as actor in a leading part. Now I'm nominated as actor in a supporting part. If I don't win, I'll just wait until I'm nominated for being in the theater during the show. Do they have one like that?
I would like to know that when I read the paper in the morning, it's telling me something that actually happened, and I think the vast majority of journalists want the same thing.
I really don't like plays or movies that service propaganda.
Why would you give money to somebody whose work you don't understand?
And I think belief is one of those things that comes to people in their own way. And just because I believe in something doesn't mean I think that you should.
I always loved Sid Caesar and all the people on his program.
Awards shows mainly publicize the people giving the awards.
For me, I find that even though I've accomplished a few things in my life, looking back on accomplishments doesn't give me a sense of satisfaction.
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.
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 recognise their names and faces but know almost nothing else about them?
If I can't get the girl, at least give me more money.
I'm in the real world, some people try to steal from me, and I stop them, frequently, take them to court. I love a good lawsuit. It's fun.
I think when you're acting, you usually don't have to know too much beyond how to pronounce the words you're saying.
