Peter Falk

“There's a bit of a problem. The script that I like, the network doesn't like. The script that they like, I don't like.”

“My idea of Heaven is to wake up, have a good breakfast, and spend the rest of the day drawing.”

“I remember being amazed that actors had a union. I thought only coal miners had unions, or guys that worked in automobile plants. That's an indication of how naive I was.”

“When I was young, I was looking for people to look up to - role models I could respect.”

“I'm secretly very stuffy.”

“Hartford had the Mark Twain Masquers, which was fantastic. They had been in business I don't know how many years. They knew how to build sets and sell tickets and put on a play. My day started at night. When I left the office, that's when my day began.”

“When I go see a basketball game, I'm always in the front row. I always have a table at a restaurant; I never have trouble getting a taxi.”

“Initially, they wanted Columbo to wear a driving coat. I said: 'Are you kidding? He's not an English aristocrat.'”

“I just keep working.”

“I got a regret: That I started acting so late. I was 27, and guys who start at 18 or so, there's this kinda continuity of friendships they form in the profession by startin' young, I've never had that.”

“It became the joke of the neighbourhood. If the umpire ruled me out on a bad call, I'd take the fake eye out and hand it to him.”

“I used to have this idea that you can spend years in the movies and TV and then, at the drop of a hat, say 'Oh, I'll go back and do the theater.'”

“I had two ambitions: One was to be in The Actors Studio, and the other was to walk into a bar where actors hung out, and everyone would know that I was a professional actor and I would be accepted.”

“I never understood a word John Cassavetes said. And I think he did that deliberately.”

“In order to be totally spontaneous, you can't be too obsessed with accuracy, but if you're inaccurate in a drawing, it will look fake, and when you act, it will sound fake. You have to find miraculously some proper balance between the two, but there's no formula.”

“I used to dread somebody saying, 'Whatsa matter with your eye?'”

“I do figure every angle of a guy I'm acting - but not consciously 'til afterward.”

“When I was growing up in Ossining, N.Y., playing pool with the guys, the thought that any one of us might become an actor was as far-fetched as being knighted by the queen of England.”

“Acting is like golf: analysis leads to paralysis.”

“The female body is awesome.”