Chris[topher] Reeve wisely parsed the difference between optimism and hope. Unlike optimism, he said, 'Hope is the product of knowledge and the projection of where the knowledge can take us.

Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it.

I'm kind of private and I keep things inside a lot, but it's been so wonderful to realize that people care about you in a very deep way and that there is some bond between an actor and his audience. I don't even know how to describe that feeling.

The moment I understood this - that my Parkinson's was the one thing I wasn't going to change - I started looking at the things I could change, like the way research is funded.

Pity is a benign form of abuse.

[My son] will have a fairly stable future. Not one where the schoolyard talk is whose father grossed $8 million on his last picture.

I take the medication for myself so I can transact, not for anyone else. But I am aware that it is empowering for people to see what I do and, for the most part, people in the Parkinson's community are just really happy that Parkinson's is getting mentioned, and not in a pitying way.