Read, read, read, read, read. Read everything. You can’t work unless you know the world, and outside of living in the world the best way to learn about the world is to read about it.

[In my pre-success years] there was a constant hunger, measuring myself against other actors, and there was sometimes fear. But, there was always a need for self-improvement, to help with the struggle to make myself a better actor.

George Washington Bridge? You throw yourself off the Brooklyn Bridge, traditionally. George Washington Bridge, who does that?

If I could put my finger on it, I'd bottle it and sell it. I came down here originally in 1972 with some drunken fraternity guys and had never seen anything like it - the climate, the smells. It's the cradle of music; it just flipped me. Someone suggested that there's an incomplete part of our chromosomes that gets repaired or found when we hit New Orleans. Some of us just belong here.

Social Security's future has gotten worse, and each year we delay reform adds to the cost we are pushing off onto our children.

Basically, though, I'm just lucky to love what I do for a living.

Believe me, nobody likes to loaf more than me.