Alan Alda

“Really top-notch directors, I've often worked with them just to see how they work.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I've never tried to manipulate my image.”

“No matter how big the audience is going to be. I'm interested in doing things that are fun.”

“I love oatmeal. To me, it's not boring. I agree that ordinary oatmeal is very boring, but not the steel-cut Irish kind - the kind that pops in your mouth when you bite into it in little glorious bursts like a sort of gummy champagne.”

“I always loved Sid Caesar and all the people on his program.”

“I was a child, and my mother was psychotic. She loved me, but I didn't really feel I had a mother. And when you live with somebody who is paranoid and thinks you're trying to kill them all the time, you tend to feel a little betrayed.”

“I know there's a creative side to artists to - pardon me - there's a creative side to scientists already, but there may be an artistic side, too, waiting to break free.”

“Usually, comedy shows only influence other comedy shows. 'M*A*S*H' is one of the few comedies that influenced dramatic shows as well.”

“I'm most at home on the stage. I was carried onstage for the first time when I was six months old.”

“I think most people are interested in our origins; once we understand, it might be easier to become the people we'd like to be. Or, better, become the people we think we already are.”

“My father sang well, and he was a handsome man. When he walked down the street, people sometimes mistook him for Cary Grant and asked for his autograph.”

“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 used to be an amateur inventor when I was a kid; I'm always inventing something.”

“When I got recognized as a writer, when I got the Emmy, I was more excited than the Emmys I had gotten as an actor.”

“On the stage, the characters express themselves more through words than images. So the arguments of the characters and the tension between characters - words have to be used to express that, and I love that about theater.”

“Be fair with others, but then keep after them until they're fair with you.”

“No, I never thought about my image. It interests me that there are people who do, that they seem to be methodical about it.”

“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.”