Quotes by John Lithgow

• The Broadway audience is made up of a greater percentage of tourists now. There's not nearly as much variety and danger and challenge in what's being offered.
• Up there with my awards, I have a great big statue of Groucho Marx, just to put everything in perspective.
• When you end a successful sitcom, the most sensible thing to do is go back to the theater.
• What you aspire to on a sitcom is the feeling of live comedy.
• Take care, be kind, be considerate of other people and other species, and be loving.
• I keep looking for things I haven't done yet.
• I never get tired of hearing compliments.
• I was in 20 Shakespearean plays by the time I was 20.
• I'd sleep under a Vermeer.
• I'm a con artist in that I'm an actor. I make people believe something is real when they know perfectly well it isn't.
• I'm a fun father, but not a good father. The hard decisions always went to my wife.
• I'm very concerned for the future of the earth and its amazing creatures. We've got to be careful and make sure we don't foul our own nest.
• If it's well written and well directed and you've got good actors to work with, acting is easy. But making sure all the ducks are in a row is the hard part. It's very rare.
• If you read in front of your kids, it's very likely that they'll become readers, too.
• In animation, there's this exhilarating moment of discovery when you see the film and you say, Oh THAT'S what I was doing.
• It's a very tough time for the playwright. Broadway has become almost a musical comedy theme park with all these long-running shows.
• Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug.
• Shakespeare is like mother's milk to me.
• There's nothing like spending an evening with an audience every night.
• Look at the darkest hit musicals - Cabaret, West Side Story, Carousel - they are exuberant experiences. They send you out of the theater filled with music.
• Everybody's a dreamer.
• For me, working on stage is much more exhausting than all the other mediums, but it's also much more thrilling.
• I can't imagine doing an hour-long dramatic series because it's so much work. A sitcom is a wonderful gig. You work from 10 to 4 every day, it's fun, and you get to live at home.
• I consider myself a very lucky actor that, approaching 60, I'm still employed and employable.
• I find I have to walk a little faster in public these days, but it's very easy to remember when nobody had any idea who I was.
• I gave up shame a long time ago.
• I have a lot of faith in people.
• Academics tend to have wonderfully infantile senses of humor.