John Lithgow

“I'm as vain as the next person, but I've made so much fun of myself over the years, and that's very salutary as you grow older.”

“Oh, I'm dying to play Donald Trump someday, just because he's an unbelievable character. I'm a character actor; that's what you look for: outsized human beings.”

“I tell young people, including my own kids, don't do this, it's too difficult. It's a career full of rejection, disappointment and failure. It's murderously hard on the ego. Don't become an actor.”

“Take care, be kind, be considerate of other people and other species, and be loving.”

“I gave up shame a long time ago.”

“'M. Butterfly' is usually the answer to the question, 'What has been your favorite experience?' The reason being, it is an astonishing play.”

“The first long chapter of my career was almost entirely theater so that, by the time I was 30, 35, I sort of knew who I was as an actor, and I was gradually learning who I was as a human being.”

“We all grow up with inherited genes and inherited sensibilities, and they run very, very deep.”

“Churchill is so particular. He's as different from the rest of the population of Britain as he is from me.”

“I eat way too fast.”

“Britain has a great sense of its own national pride. It's like the monarchy is the embodiment of that pride.”

“Voice work is fun. But about three-quarters of the things you enjoy about acting are just not there. You're not working with another actor; you're not working with an audience. You're just working with a bunch of writers and a microphone. It's very abstract.”

“I am in the business of exploring crazy possibilities.”

“I'm too much of a Libra. I too often see the other person's point of view and capitulate, even though I have strong political convictions. It's just my liability. Maybe I'm too empathetic. That's the actor in me.”

“I love New York. I lived there all through the '70s and have lived in L.A. since the early '80s but come back all the time to do theater.”

“I'm getting older, but better, too. And the roles are getting better.”

“I'm a very hopeful person. I mean, I'm an optimistic person, sometimes stupidly optimistic.”

“I auditioned for soap operas and commercials; I remember auditioning for Lays potato chips. It was a sort of 'Mutiny on the Bounty' sketch, where Captain Bligh was torturing the crew by saying, 'You can only have one Lays potato chip,' and they all rise up.”

“I don't deal with the nuts and bolts of life.”

“No villain thinks of himself as a villain, and that's the approach I always take.”