Top 182 Quotes & Sayings by Alan Alda - Page 2

We're highly social animals - I'm told by scientists that what makes us different from other animals is an acute social awareness, which is what has made us so successful.

Blind dates are treacherous. You don't know who this person is. You wonder, 'Should I call my grandma during coffee to get out of this?'

You can watch actors create their illusions, but if you don't see where they get the pigeons from, you don't really know how they're doing it.

I always loved Sid Caesar and all the people on his program.

We need to be more conversant with it because science is in our lives. It's in everything. It's in the food we eat. It's in the air we breathe. It's everywhere.

When people are laughing, they're generally not killing one another.

I had never really wanted to be famous. Everyone is supposed to want to be rich and famous, but as a boy I never knew what rich was, and the first view I had of famous made me leery.

What I always wanted to get seen as was as a good actor, when it was the acting I was doing. When I'm writing, I want to try to be seen as a good writer.

I read science, because to me, that's extremely exciting. It's like a great detective story, and it's happening right in front of us.

I used to read science fiction a lot, and I still like science fiction when it is a model of how we really are and to see ourselves from another perspective.

For me, I find that even though I've accomplished a few things in my life, looking back on accomplishments doesn't give me a sense of satisfaction.

When I was in high school, I fell under the spell of that crazy idea that if you're interested in the arts, you can't be interested in science.

The whole question of fiduciary responsibility is a very old concept. You could make a movie about someone making that rule at any point in history, and within a few months, it will turn out to be timely.

I was brought up as a Catholic, and I'm no longer a Catholic. I don't talk about my beliefs too much in public probably because I feel very strongly that it's something personal - more than personal, it's private.

I feel like every time a door is opened by science, suddenly there are a hundred doors that need to get opened. That's what makes it an everlasting, interesting experience to go through.

I found I wasn't asking good enough questions because I assumed I knew something. I would box them into a corner with a badly formed question, and they didn't know how to get out of it. Now, I let them take me through it step by step, and I listen.

When I am at a dinner table, I love to ask everybody, 'How long do you think our species might last?' I've read that the average age of a species, of any species, is about two million years. Is it possible we can have an average life span as a species? And do you picture us two million years more or a million and a half years, or 5,000?

Musicals are hard for me because I got thrown out of the glee club in high school, because I couldn't sing in tune at the time. I can sing in tune now, but I have to work really hard on it to make sure that I don't exercise one of my great talents, which is the ability to sing in three keys at the same time.

A really great actor, in a lucky performance, can transform himself or herself. I've seen actors do that. But often it's a mechanical transformation, which isn't as interesting, and you've got to be careful how you go about something like that, I think.

The one thing I think I've noticed about shows that are supposed to be funny on television is that they've sort of become routinized, so there's an awful lot of mannerisms and joke lines that are sort of there to trigger laughter, rather than give actors a chance to play a moment.

What is beauty, anyway? It's more than something pleasant looking. If it doesn't stop us in our tracks and make us unable to move for a moment, unable to put into words what's closing off the breath in our throats, then maybe it's pretty, but it probably isn't beauty.

When I got recognized as a writer, when I got the Emmy, I was more excited than the Emmys I had gotten as an actor.

All I've ever tried to do is play real people.

The hardest thing for me about making movies, and that included 'M*A*S*H' because it was made like a movie, was starting and stopping.

Anyone I know who's almost died has come out of it, at least for a while, looking at things differently.

You can't get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you're doing. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself.

Achingly funny as it was, Larry Gelbart's writing gave off sparks that turned a hard light on the way we are.

I'm in the real world, some people try to steal from me, and I stop them, frequently, take them to court. I love a good lawsuit. It's fun.

You know what my earliest memories are? Going from one burlesque town to another. My father was in burlesque.

I never thought about my image. It interests me that there are people who do, that they seem to be methodical about it. Maybe things would have gone differently for me in some ways if I had.

It's a funny feeling to work with people who you consider your colleagues and to realize that they actually are young enough to be your children.

I don't really worry about the size of the part much any more. It's nice to have more time to work on the character, and to have big scenes to play. But if there's something playable there, and if it's interesting to do, then that's nice.

I don't watch that much TV, so I can't compare one show to another. When I watch television, I watch people talking to one another usually or a science show where they show me microbes, you know. Microbes actually communicate quite a bit, and so there's a lot of talking going on.

No matter how big the audience is going to be. I'm interested in doing things that are fun.

I hated high school. It was a prison.

I fix my grandchildren's computers.

I know there's a creative side to artists to - pardon me - there's a creative side to scientists already, but there may be an artistic side, too, waiting to break free.

Any play is hard to write, and plays are getting harder and harder to get on the stage.

There is a wonderful feeling of power when you're a director, but I don't think I need that, and I'm OK without it.

I really don't like plays or movies that service propaganda.

In the midst of the sense of tragedy or loss, sometimes laughter is not only healing, it's a way of experiencing the person that you've lost again.

What I always wanted to get seen as was as a good actor, when it was the acting I was doing. When I'm writing, I want to try to be seen as a good writer. Not as somebody with a particular idea to sell, or something like that.

I've had many uncanny experiences. I think it's hard to be alive and not have them. But I don't know if I can decide what that means or what they are.

It's not an epitaph. I felt I could look back at my life and get a good story out of it. It's a picture of somebody trying to figure things out. I'm not trying to create some impression about myself. That doesn't interest me.

Kids are natural scientists.

I'm most at home on the stage. I was carried onstage for the first time when I was six months old.

What heartens me is to see '30 Rock' on the air. It makes me laugh from my gut, which I really like to do.

To do a musical takes a tremendous amount of energy because you have to act and sing at the same time. And everything has to be precise. Because you can't forget the lyrics because the band keeps playing, you know, and you're under a certain amount of pressure.

My background is on the stage, so when I'd write movies, they'd be a lot like plays.

I'm an angry person, angrier than most people would imagine, I get flashes of anger. What works for me is working out when it's useful to use that anger.

I think I look better in a suit than a loincloth. So that may define some of the parts I play.

I love to watch how scientists' minds work.

My father sang well, and he was a handsome man. When he walked down the street, people sometimes mistook him for Cary Grant and asked for his autograph.

What's funny is that you can think you really value your life until you almost lose it.

I used to be an amateur inventor when I was a kid; I'm always inventing something.

I wouldn't live in California. All that sun makes you sterile.

And I think belief is one of those things that comes to people in their own way. And just because I believe in something doesn't mean I think that you should.

It's very important for us to see that science is done by people, not just brains but whole human beings, and sometimes at great cost.

M*A*S*H' was a collection of people, in front of and behind the cameras, that really clicked.

I'm most at home on the stage.