Top 42 Quotes & Sayings by Jonathan Banks

I like my wife. I'm stupid in love with my wife and always have been.

Boy I could do this forever; I truly enjoy bad guys.

That first episode of 'Newsroom,' the way it just cooked, I thought it was really good.

It's not that I don't enjoy a good mystery that comes and goes in a hour. I do, but God, 'Breaking Bad' and 'Saul' unfold like novels.

Thank God for theater and film and television and my very, very, very lucky life.

Ed O'Neill is just a good, good human being.

From the time I could visually perceive film or TV, I was just enthralled by it. I thought it was the most wonderful thing in the world.

Forty-five years since I made my first paycheck, and I'm telling you that 'Breaking Bad' is as good as it gets.

I do always get cast in these world-weary parts.

We've all been the brunt of jokes at times.

If you had ever told me that the finest film work was going to be done on television, I wouldn't have believed it.

'Homeland' is great.

When I walk onto a set, no matter what it is, I always do the very best work that I can. But I'm not braindead, and I want to do things that I want to do, you know?

I grew up in Chillum Heights in the Washington, D.C. area., and it was never a garden spot. When guys go, 'Hey, when I grew up, my neighborhood was tough, and it was this and that'... the reality is that it was just a terribly sad place. And thank God, I was able to escape it.

'Wiseguy' for its time was good. It was really good. And it holds up still. But a lot of the restraints have been taken off now.

I love Russell Crowe's line to Oliver Reed in 'Gladiator' where he asks him, 'Are you in danger of becoming a good man?' It's one of my favorite lines ever.

You can never know your lines well enough, and you better listen.

God bless my mother - she's long gone now, but she'd work all day and go to school at night. She started out in life as a housekeeper at 15 years old, totally on her own, and she retired as a college professor. But there were some hard times. It's not easy for a woman who's only trying to do the best for her kid but who could never be home.

I love 'Boardwalk Empire,' but there were moments where I thought it didn't have the constant through-line that 'Breaking Bad' did and 'Better Call Saul' does.

I have no trouble walking around. But every once in a while, somebody will come, during the course of the day, and say, 'Oh, I recognize you from such-and-such,' and yeah, they'll make a connection. I think for the most part, people don't go, 'Where do I know him from? Does he work at the bank?'

There's a lot of people in my family who've adopted children.

I honestly do feel - and I hope I don't gag anybody if they read this - but I feel like I'm one of the luckiest people in the world.

I was a janitor when I was 16, cleaning out garbage rooms in Washington, D.C., and they were foul. It gets really hot in D.C. in the summertime, and you then take on the essence of garbage. People would stand away from me on the sidewalk as I came toward them.

If you had told me in the Seventies and Eighties that TV would be as edgy or edgier than most films, and more intelligently written than most films, I wouldn't have believed it. There's great stuff out there.

The funniest guy I've ever worked with - it's just one of those things, again, where we look at each other and just laugh - is Jimmy Byrnes from 'Wiseguy.' Jimmy - we can't be in the same room together. He knows he can make me laugh just by looking at me.

I grew up in Washington, D.C. Suffice to say, it was not a garden spot.

In my junior year, I saw 'Zorba the Greek' with Anthony Quinn, and I was transported by it. I wanted to live, laugh, travel.

I was a latchkey kid from the time I was 7 years old.

Never equate yourself with whatever success may be and how fleeting that is. The only thing you can do every day is become a better actor. That's the only thing I have control over.

It really bothers me that Stephen Cannell has died. I had lunch with him about eight months before he died, and... I really liked him. I really did.

I say this to young actors: You don't get into this because you think you're average. You get into this because you think, 'I'm good.' It's an art form, and I'm an artist. But as an artist, you know there's not a soul in the world that's going to believe in you other than yourself.

If I could ban boxing, I probably would, but I'll tell you in the same breath, I loved it growing up.

I probably carry a fair amount of sarcasm in my daily life.

People tell you who they are. There are big neon signs going off. 'Pay attention! This is who I am.' And most of us put out hands a little bit over our eyes. We don't see that.

I've got eighteen-year-old twins that need to go to college, so there's still a financial issue, but I could retire tomorrow and just count ducks by the side of the lake, and that would be just fine by me. I'm not a high-energy guy.

I've died so many times. I'm 65. On my 40th birthday, my girlfriend gave me a reel with ways I had died, whether it was by knife, or electrocution or drowning or being thrown off a building or whatever it might have been. I've died a lot of times!

I've played a lot of bad guys over the years, a lot of hardcore guys. At the same time, I've done a lot of comedy.

I think I've been cast as toughs as far as I can remember always, always.

If I had my way, we'd rehearse things to death.

I do like when you find a true personal relationship with any of the characters, you like to make that honest connection. And every once in a while, there's that glimmer where you got that line in where something happens, where you get to really talk.

Just because you shot Jesse James, don't make you Jesse James.

Comedy is not my world. It's difficult for me, but sometimes you just have to go with it and have a good time.