I was spoiled by theater, where there is no editor.

'ER' was so huge that whatever I did coming back to television, I'd have to feel as strongly about.

You've got to make the most of where you are. Then, when you're somewhere else, you've got to have the ability to fulfill that.

There's really no point in having children if you're not going to be home enough to father them.

I did tons of theater in school, and then when I was 16 and got my driver's license, I started driving to Los Angeles, along with my friend Eric Stoltz, who was a year ahead of me and was doing the same thing. So we had the same manager, and we started auditioning for things and doing commercials when we were 16.

People relate to things that feel real to them. All the good, happy, over-sexed and moneyed endings on TV are not the way most of us feel in our lives. The success of 'E.R.,' I think, is not relying on overly sentimental stories that are solved where people's lives wrap up nicely with happy endings.

Flying back from New York, the flight attendant said 'God, I wished you were here yesterday, we had a stroke on the plane.' I said, 'If I have a stroke on a plane, I hope the pretend doctor isn't the one on the plane. I want a real doctor.'