Time is very important to art and if you don't have the time to select, art goes out the window.

I love the theater. I love the rehearsals. That's where you build a performance. That's your foundation. If you're gonna build a house, you start with the foundation. That makes the house strong. That's the way I build a character, from the foundation out.

I was happy because I was acting. Most of the time for nothing. But I was learning and to learn that you can learn opens up the world for you.

I love the theater because I love the live audience and when we went three cameras we have a live audience in the study so we had someone to play to and react to. That laughter.

For 50 years, acting was the reason I got up in the morning.

Acting became my best friend. When I auditioned to get into college, the teacher said you belong here, Mr. Klugman, and to hear that word belong - I never belonged anywhere before - and suddenly I belonged in acting and it was so comfortable and I loved it.

Fred Silverman, the head of ABC, he offered me a lot of comedy series but I told him I'd already been the best comedy series around, "The Odd Couple," and so when he saw that I did Quincy he called my agent and said, Jack turns me down? All my good series and he ends up playing an undertaker." And this was the HEAD of ABC series.