Dan Castellaneta

“There are times when the writers ask us to improvise. Sometimes the animators are inspired by what you do, and sometimes you are inspired by what the animators do.”

“It's a different way of getting across an emotion. You're trying to get it across to the animator because the animator is inspired by the voicetrack in terms of how to animate the character.”

“Beer. Now there's a temporary solution.”

“I think the tone of the show has certainly changed over the years, because it's really, really hard to do something different when you have a show going on as long as this has.”

“The humor is essentially dark for a cartoon and sophisticated. But at the same time, being a cartoon gives the writers more freedom than in a normal sitcom. It always pushes the line that, despite human failings, the Simpsons are really decent people.”

“It's the cushiest job, but some lines are so funny that I crack up.”

“In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!”

“I think that most people don't even know that I do other things. They think that Homer is all that I do.”

“The Simpsons take up so little time that I'm able to do other things as well.”

“It's the weirdest thing. When you go into acting, you expect to be a huge star and to be recognized... It did happen, but not in the way you expect it to... In L.A., I'm just another character actor.”

“It is better to watch things then to do them.”

“If I were actually Homer Simpson, I'd be getting scripts out the wazoo.”

“Getting out of jury duty is easy. The trick is to say you're prejudiced against all races.”

“I often say, if I wasn't part of the show I'd be a huge fan of it.”

“It's hard to find a play that's right for me to do. Rather than waiting around for the right script to come along, I decided to write one myself.”

“One of my favorite episodes was the one in which Homer grew hair. That was a very unique episode, since there was a gay secretary, but that wasn't even the issue of the show-the issue was Homer's image changing because he had hair.”

“I always enjoyed writing. I did playlets in high school, I did radio shows in college. That's one of the reasons I went down to Second City, because you could do acting and writing.”

“Go ahead and play the blues if it'll make you happy.”

“After years of doing it, you learn the difference between your ego and your opinion. When you're married you have to cut through that.”

“The nice thing is that, at least in Los Angeles, I'm known as a character actor and I do auditions for other things besides just cartoon shows.”