John Lithgow Quotes

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.

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

Take care, be kind, be considerate of other people and other species, and be loving.

Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug.

It's a very tough time for the playwright. Broadway has become almost a musical comedy theme park with all these long-running shows.

I learned the most about myself, and you ask what I learned? Well, I learned my strengths and my weaknesses, and it's far more important to learn about your weaknesses than your strengths.

The most exciting acting tends to happen in roles you never thought you could play.

I went to Princeton High School, when I was very serious about being an artist. I was in a theatre family but I didn't want to become an actor.

In animation, there's this exhilarating moment of discovery when you see the film and you say, Oh THAT'S what I was doing.

You kill three people, they call you a murderer. You kill a million people, they call you a conqueror. Go figure.

I never get tired of hearing compliments.

We should have charity for what the dead say. We may disapprove of what they say, but we should not insult them and revile them knowing they cannot not defend themselves.

Everybody's a dreamer.

There's nothing like spending an evening with an audience every night.

Books make great gifts because they're something you love that you can share.

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

I was very interested in being a painter. I had facility, I had talent, and I loved painting and printmaking, and I was quite serious about it.

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

Up there with my awards, I have a great big statue of Groucho Marx, just to put everything in perspective.

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 keep looking for things I haven't done yet.

That's how you deal with stardom; you make it the least important part of your life.

I'm a fun father, but not a good father. The hard decisions always went to my wife

For me, working on stage is much more exhausting than all the other mediums, but it's also much more thrilling.

Academics tend to have wonderfully infantile senses of humor.

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.

I got a wonderful college education. I went to Harvard. In those four years I accumulated a lot of knowledge but I also created a kind of habit of learning that has stayed with me my whole life.

I consider myself a very lucky actor that, approaching 60, I'm still employed and employable.

Shakespeare is like mother's milk to me.

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.

Anyone who hears enough laughter and applause at a young age will become an actor, whether they intend to or not.

I'm always being asked to play roles or characters that I don't really resemble.

It's my theory that if you hear enough applause and laughter at a young enough age, you're doomed

I grew up in a theater family. My father was a regional theater classical repertory producer. He created Shakespeare festivals. He produced all of Shakespeare's plays, mostly in Shakespeare festivals in Ohio. One of them, the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland, is still going. So I grew up not wanting to be an actor, not wanting to go into the family business.

When you end a successful sitcom, the most sensible thing to do is go back to the theater.

If my life was a play, age 35 was my intermission.

If we are ever going to save this society and the world, there has got to be a way for us to work together. That may be more than we can ever hope to achieve, just because of human nature.

If you read in front of your kids, it's very likely that they'll become readers, too

I always tell that to young people - go to college, do theater, work with an audience. Don't try to learn how to act in front of millions and millions of people. Don't make that your first ambition, to be on a sitcom or get into the movies. Learn who you are as an actor, and the best way to do that is to do it in front of an audience.

I have a lot of faith in people.

I subscribe to the great George G. Scott quote, "All actors are in trouble. Directors who don't help are a pain in the ass". We all need help from directors. We are all equally insecure.

My only regret is that we didn't have more kids. I came from a family of four kids, but my wife and I just started too late.

I was married very young. I lived a very middle class life. I was married at age 21, divorced at 31. I didn't sleep on people's couches.

The problem is that people are pulling farther apart, rather than make an effort to get back together. There have been remarkable moments that united this country. It makes everyone feel relieved. Then because of economic stress, political shifts, we get wrenched apart again. I think it's cyclical. I am an optimist by nature. There are moments, the period after 9/11, the way we responded. The election of Barack Obama. There are moments where the country felt good about being American. I'm waiting for that to happen again.

I Need a Good Book I need a good story. I need a good book. The kind that explodes Off the shelf. I need some good writing, Alive and exciting, To contemplate all by myself. I need a good novel, I need a good read. I probably need Two or three. I need a good tale Of love and betrayal Or perhaps an adventure at sea. I need a good saga. I need a good yarn. A momentous and mightily Or slight one. But with thousands and thousands And thousands of books, I need someone to tell me The right one. -John Lithgow

I'm as flighty as anybody. You put a lot out there. I've been through the process a lot. When I play a major role, it's my instinct to create a nice atmosphere. People in the major roles dominate the tone of an entire film. To my mind, it's much easier to work creatively when everyone's friendly.

I went to Harvard and immediately fell into the theater gang, and I was already an experienced actor, so you go with the flow! I've already used the phrase "campus star."

I think there are all sorts of ways of turning into an actor, and there are a vast variety of different actors. You know, you interview plenty of actors and you know they come at it from a different direction and acting means different things to a lot of people.