A tree you pass by every day is just a tree. If you are to closely examine what a tree has and the life a tree has, even the smallest thing can withstand a curiosity, and you can examine whole worlds.

I had been in a Shakespeare company for three years and done a lot of Shakespeare. That was fun. That was interesting.

Sci-fi films are the epic films of the day because we can no longer put 10,000 extras in the scene - but we can draw thousands of aliens with computers.

Things people say strike me as amusing, and I am prone to saying out loud what everybody's thinking.

I think of doing a series as very hard work. But then I've talked to coal miners, and that's really hard work.

I love to evoke the bones and meat and thoughts of characters.

Within weeks of our premiere, it became obvious that Leonard [Nimoy] and the character of Spock were becoming something of a national phenomenon. ... And to be unflatteringly frank, it bugged me. ... [Then, Gene Roddenberry] said to me the wisest thing he could possibly have uttered. He said, `Don't ever fear having good and popular people around you, because they can only enhance your own performance. The more you can play to these people, the better the show.'