I sincerely believe that everything - everything - is grace, and you have to stick around long enough to see it through. I'm a very optimistic person.

I think most actors rarely get the opportunity to play something really close to you and speaks to something you deeply believe.

The key word about The West Wing is show. It is not a reality show. It has nothing to do with reality.

It doesn't really matter how much of the rules or the dogma we accepted and lived by if we're not really living by the fundamental creed of the Catholic Church, which is service to others and finding God in ourselves and then seeing God in everyone - including our enemies.

My first civil disobedience arrest for social justice was in 1986 for protesting the SDI.

I was a celebrity. This is not what I do for a living - politics. I play politicians, as well as working class or clergy or whatever, and you mustn't be confused by what you're seeing on television because that's not who I am. So I always ended it.

The Irish tell the story of a man who arrives at the gates of heaven and asks to be let in St. Peter says, “Of course, just show us your scars.” The man says, “I have no scars”. St. Peter says, “What a pity was there nothing worth fighting for”?