You need to be real enough to be believable, but you don't necessarily have to be real enough to be real. There is a distinction.

At the end of your days, you will be judged by your gallop, not by your stumble.

I did not always agree, personally, on the positions that Bartlet, character from the West Wing, took and I argued against them on many occasions. But Aaron Sorkin said, "Martin, that's you, that's not Barlet. It's a very political decision he has to make." I found from the very beginning that when I infused my own personal feelings about an issue it went against the grain of the character.

As an actor you always feel like you're swimming upstream.

Aaron is a very passionate, maniacal writer so the scripts really come from him, but he is very open to... y'know, we'll plan ideas and we'll certainly tussle about stuff when the script comes out. So, to a certain extent, he's very interested. If there's some problem or something that doesn't ring true, he wants to know why and he wants to correct it or fight for it.

You don't want your credibility banana to turn brown, but you do want to speak out about what you believe in.

Infuse your life with action. Don't wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen... yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.