We never get over our fathers, and we’re not required to. (Irish Proverb)

I love The West Wing for many reasons. The show has been a fantasy. But we have offered a parallel universe to reality.

I act because I can't seem to live with myself if I do not. I don't know any other way to be. It isn't something you can explain; it is just something that you do; it is something that you are.

Money's only something you need in case you don't die tomorrow.

The first world is going to have to account for this sort of horrible poverty in our midst. We have to, first of all, become aware of it. We have to take responsibility for it. And then we have to do something about it for our own freedom, for our own salvation, for our own humanity.

I was the last one to join the cast of the west Wing and when I started it was just a peripheral character - the focus was to be on the staff, not the First Family. When I did the pilot, my contract was for just three years and it was confined to maybe three or four episodes every season. The only restraint I had was that I could not play another President while the show was on the air. So, I kind of backed into one of the great events of my life and certainly my career.

I personally am opposed to abortion, but I will not judge anybody else's right in that regard because I am not a woman and I could never face the actual reality of it.