When people are laughing, they're generally not killing one another.

Everybody's on their toes and focused on what we're about to do, and then there's this moment where you relax because you see that everybody is there to do the best that they can. Everyone opens up to one another right away. That's a terrific thing. I love that about actors. They know how personal this job is.

It's not an epitaph. I felt I could look back at my life and get a good story out of it. It's a picture of somebody trying to figure things out. I'm not trying to create some impression about myself. That doesn't interest me.

Republicans are as capable of coming up with great ideas and moving this country along as anyone - they just don't do it.

Originality is unexplored territory. You get there by carrying a canoe - you can't take a taxi.

We're highly social animals - I'm told by scientists that what makes us different from other animals is an acute social awareness, which is what has made us so successful.

The difference between listening and pretending to listen, I discovered, is enormous. One is fluid, the other is rigid. One is alive, the other is stuffed. Eventually, I found a radical way of thinking about listening. Real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you. When I’m willing to let them change me, something happens between us that’s more interesting than a pair of dueling monologues.