It's important not to base your ambition on anybody else's history, but to figure out how best to use your own particular personality and understanding of yourself to help tell other people's stories.

I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, so nothing of what I was studying seemed to fit. I know now that I should have taken advantage of that time and that I missed a great deal of the opportunity to educate myself.

I had no expectation of the level of adulation that would come my way. I just wanted to make a living with a regular role in a television series.

When I was a carpenter, I once worked with this Russian lady architect. I would tell her, ‘Look, I’m terribly sorry, but I want to change that a half inch,’ and she would say, ‘No limit for better.’ I think that is a worthy credo. You keep on going until you get it as close to being right as the time and patience of others will allow.

American Graffiti was the first movie where the director let me have any input. It was the first time anyone ever listened to me. George thought my character should have a crew cut, but I wasn't happy with that idea. I'd always had pretty long hair back then - in college, particularly - so I told George my character should wear a cowboy hat. George thought about it and he remembered a bunch of guys from Modesto, California, who cruised around, like my character, and wore cowboy hats, so it turned out that it actually fit the movie.

Irish as a person but I feel Jewish as an actor.

Henry: Well I'm sorry about your head though, but I thought you were one of them. Indiana: Dad, they come in through the doors.