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.

The issue for my character, and the issue of the show is, how dirty do your feet have to get without suffocating yourself in the mud in order to get an inch of what you really want done?

I used to defend the West Wing show from the charge of sentimentality or wish-fulfilment, because I think if you do go into the Barack Obama White House you will find six or seven people around him who are true believers. We make these people climb this filthy rope and then we stand at the bottom and say, "Hey, your hands are dirty!" To show heroic, progressive, democratic politics at work was more than I ever expected.

I heard an Israeli speaking on Palestinian human rights issues, an interesting guy, and he said 'There's no military solution to terrorism. If there were, Israel would be the safest place in the world. But there's no military solution.'

One of the most surreal moments in this election was after the third debate, when I heard a talking head say, Al Gore won on substance, on the issues. But you have to give the victory to Bush because he seems presidential.

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

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