If you read in front of your kids, it's very likely that they'll become readers, too

I got a wonderful college education. I went to Harvard. In those four years I accumulated a lot of knowledge but I also created a kind of habit of learning that has stayed with me my whole life.

I learned the most about myself, and you ask what I learned? Well, I learned my strengths and my weaknesses, and it's far more important to learn about your weaknesses than your strengths.

Having grown up in the theater family, having done a huge amount of acting from a very little boy to precocious teenager in Shakespeare festivals that my father produced, I went off to college and fell in with the theater gang. I was already an experienced actor. I became a kind of campus star. I heard all this applause and laughter.

I have a lot of faith in people.

I consider myself a very lucky actor that, approaching 60, I'm still employed and employable.

The problem is that people are pulling farther apart, rather than make an effort to get back together. There have been remarkable moments that united this country. It makes everyone feel relieved. Then because of economic stress, political shifts, we get wrenched apart again. I think it's cyclical. I am an optimist by nature. There are moments, the period after 9/11, the way we responded. The election of Barack Obama. There are moments where the country felt good about being American. I'm waiting for that to happen again.