The first thing you've got to do is know your craft, and then you can do something else with it.

My parents didn't want me to be a regular in a series. I was a working actor from time to time but they thought was a little too much being a star of a series. They wanted me to have a slightly more normal childhood.

I am one of those people who thrive on deadlines. Nothing brings on inspiration more readily than desperation.

You're not just looking for laughs, but you're trying to do the characters first, and then the laughs come afterwards.

I have a very strong visual memory of the first time I made him laugh. That was remarkable. I was like, "Oh, God, I just made Jack Benny laugh."

I went to graduate school at Harvard for one year I worked in the state legislature in Sacramento for one year. I taught school in Compton for two years.

[C. Montgomery] Burns is much purer evil than Nixon was. I think it's the purity of his evil that attracts me as a comic character.