If a carpenter makes a chair that's comfortable for the person who's going to sit in it, he's done his job. If a train engineer gets a train in on time, he's going to make someone happy who's waiting at the station. And if an artist draws the kind of a picture that people are going to enjoy looking at, or he makes a visual story which people are going to enjoy reading, he's done his job.

My ambition was always to be a perfect picture of an American.

I didn't resolve the questions... and I find that entertaining. And if my life were to end tomorrow, it would be fulfilled in that manner. I would say, 'The questions have been terrific.'

There were very strict social conventions, and you adhered to it, and I think it gave you a lot of character. When a man said something, he meant it. He wasn't kidding around. There were no jokes involved. Nobody was in the mood to joke unless you hit a guy with a baseball bat.

I'm a guy who had to perform some way. I had to perform in some way. If not as an actor, I'd perform as an artist. It would have been something that would be outstanding in its own way.

I had to make a living. I was a married man. I had a wife. I had a home. I had children. I had to make a living. That's the common pursuit of every man.

I feel my characters are valid, my characters are people, my characters have hope. Hope is the thing that'll take us through.