Dakin Matthews

“I believe that the arts of a culture are terribly important and yet almost indefensible.”

“Moliere exaggerates common vices of mankind: lust, greed, misanthropy, hypocrisy. We all have a touch of these.”

“I'm making my Broadway musical debut at the age of 73 - it's a kind of interesting career arc.”

“I didn't ever intend to or want to be an actor. I'm not one of those people of whom they say, 'If you can't live without it, that's the only reason you should be an actor.' It was kind of a sideline that became my whole life.”

“If I were on 'Survivor,' I might be the first off the island.”

“I'm here in Hollywood to do film and television and make enough money to get my kids through college.”

“I think there's something about a sylvan setting; you want grass and nature with outdoor Shakespeare.”

“I'm a workaholic, and I know it. And I don't care to deal with it.”

“I sort of got fooled into acting, actually. I never intended to do it.”

“I actually only speak English and Latin. Medieval philosophy was my major, so we pretty much had to study in Latin.”

“You can't argue that you have to have art, and prove it to anybody. Why should I give $1,000 to art when there are people starving? Of course, that's true. But just because you can't, theoretically, defend the arts, or make a sensible argument for their preservation, doesn't mean they're not important.”

“Theater is a local art. You perform for the people in the theater that day.”

“I'm an OK singer.”

“Hamlet is the result of Shakespeare's work on Brutus.”

“Often, directors toss playwrights out of rehearsals.”

“If an L.A. actor is a star or a good face, and they want to get cred by doing a serious Shakespeare play, they will come to New York first.”

“I'm not saying that theatre is a doomed profession, but if a person wants to stay in it very long, they'd better develop theatre skills beyond just acting.”

“'School for Wives' is Moliere's first step toward grand comedy, but he still has one foot in commedia.”