Bradley Whitford

“Infuse your life with action. Don't wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen... yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.”

“When you act, you're always playing a version of yourself. You can't bring more to the role than what you are.”

“Love means never having to say you're a zero.”

“With the success of a show, you get an opportunity to call attention to things that you believe in.”

“Being an actor, you always feel like you're swimming upstream. People are going, 'No, they don't like you. They don't like the way you look. They don't like how old you are.'”

“You need to be real enough to be believable, but you don't necessarily have to be real enough to be real. There is a distinction.”

“The issue for my character, and the issue of the show is, how dirty do your feet have to get without suffocating yourself in the mud in order to get an inch of what you really want done?”

“I identify with this guy's frustration and inability to control his fury at moments. I even identify with the way that this guy covers up a lot with humour. So yeah, it's interesting.”

“Having an affair with an intern is just an incredibly stupid thing to do.”

“You don't want to become one of those Hollywood idiots who is just blathering about anything.”

“I was at the vice president's Christmas party. I thought that his speech was spectacular, and I knew that it was a very emotional and difficult thing for him to do, but I admonished him for not waiting just one more stinking day.”

“I grew up in Wisconsin. It's not like growing up in New York or L.A., where you know somebody's cousin who does this. It was in the back of my mind, but I would never say that I wanted to be an actor, but as I look back, I was in every play I could possibly be in.”

“An experience like 'The West Wing' is what I would imagine - even though I've never done it - that surfing feels like. It's, like, 'Whoa! I can just stand up here and ride this without all the anxiety!'”

“I heard an Israeli speaking on Palestinian human rights issues, an interesting guy, and he said 'There's no military solution to terrorism. If there were, Israel would be the safest place in the world. But there's no military solution.'”

“I can't believe George Bush might be president.”

“Misogyny is at the reptilian brain stem of a lot of right-wing politics.”

“Richard Schiff is a really good baseball player. It's surprising because he looks exhausted.”

“One of the most surreal moments in this election was after the third debate, when I heard a talking head say, Al Gore won on substance, on the issues. But you have to give the victory to Bush because he seems presidential.”

“Cal Ripken is steady, he focuses on his job, and he's a good guy.”

“John Wells let me write a couple of West Wings, which was an incredible gift. I loved it once I got past the brain injury part of it, and so I'm working on a couple of things that are far from fruition, but what I want to pursue.”