Being the offspring of English teachers is a mixed blessing. When the film star says to you, on the air, 'It was a perfect script for she and I,' inside your head you hear, in the sarcastic voice of your late father, 'Perfect for she, eh? And perfect for I, also?'

It's lamented that the youth get their news from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. It's lamentable that they get more from them than from the news.

Meryl Streep belongs on anybody's list of greats.

I'm not all that enthralled by show business, and I'm not that much of a highbrow.

I have a feeling that about 90% of my life has been shaped by my voice, both as an embarrassment and as an advantage. There was always the terrible incongruity of this deep voice barreling out of this little body. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was aware that it was ludicrous, that it took on an importance that wasn't really there.

It's a tribute to the human brain that anyone is able to function out there on television in a talk situation that is entirely artificial.

In the main, ghosts are said to be forlorn and generally miserable, if not downright depressed. The jolly ghost is rare.