What's so fascinating and frustrating and great about life is that you're constantly starting over, all the time, and I love that.

At some point I stopped stand-up because I didn't have something to say on a nightly basis.

I had a dream that Connie Chung is doing a newscast about my death and they show a clip from Soap.

I was always drawn to performing, but I never thought I could. I have no idea what I wanted to do outside of the old cowboy-or-fireman. When I was in college, I got serious about acting. I started examining history and then everything related to the theater. History, art, all the other studies, if I could link them into the theater, then it became alive for me. It just opened up my eyes.

In high school, I was the class comedian as opposed to the class clown. The difference is the class clown is the guy who drops his pants at the football game, the class comedian is the guy who talked him into it.

I had really good hearing and when you're scared it gets heightened so you hear scratching noises or something.

[I did impressions] of relatives because I heard so many different sounds. My dad was in the music business and of course my uncle was a giant [music producer], but my dad in particular had the house filled with these Dixieland jazz stars.