I think he [President Clinton] was probably the brightest President of the 20th century.

You are equally responsible for your place in the culture, and you must make a contribution, and you must accept responsibility for what goes down on your watch. You have no excuse if you are a conservative not to be concerned about the environment. You are equally responsible.

We think of violence as being conflict and fighting and wars and so forth, but the most ongoing horrific measure of violence is in the horrible poverty of the Third World... and the poverty in the United States as well. We have our own Third World here. And we have to first become aware of that and how to help and solve that.

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

Those years on the golf course as a caddie, boy, those people were something. They were vulgar, some were alcoholics, racist, they were very difficult people to deal with. A lot of them didn't have a sense of humor.

While acting is what I do for a living, activism is what I do to stay alive.

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.