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" Other people have often had more faith in me than I had in myself - I never thought I could pull off Roberta Muldoon in 'The World According to Garp,' or 'Of Mice and Men's' Lennie as one of my first acting jobs. "

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" When I was a teenager, I remember the extraordinary feeling of accomplishment for completing 'Vanity Fair.' I don't think it was even for school. "

John Lithgow

School

Think

Accomplishment

" I loved growing up in Ohio. "

John Lithgow

Loved

Growing

" I loved playing Roberta Muldoon! "

" I keep looking for things I haven't done yet. "

" We moved around a lot when I was growing up. I was always the new kid in class, but I was good at making friends. With an upbringing like that, I was either going to become an actor or a politician. Thank God I became an actor! I'm not cut out for politics. "

" I tell young people, including my own kids, don't do this, it's too difficult. It's a career full of rejection, disappointment and failure. It's murderously hard on the ego. Don't become an actor. "

" I was in 20 Shakespearean plays by the time I was 20. "

" One of the things you learn as an actor is that human beings are capable of almost anything. I'm sort of in the business of illustrating that fact. "

" 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. "

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

" I am in the business of exploring crazy possibilities. "

" The first long chapter of my career was almost entirely theater so that, by the time I was 30, 35, I sort of knew who I was as an actor, and I was gradually learning who I was as a human being. "

" I have a lot of faith in people. "

" I'm getting older, but better, too. And the roles are getting better. "

" I won two Golden Globes, and there was a long, long period in between the wins. That might be explained by the fact that when I first won the award, for '3rd Rock on the Sun,' I satirically compared aliens on the show to the Foreign Press Association. And they did not take that well. "

" I went to Princeton High School when I was very serious about being an artist. "

" Britain is probably the most sophisticated combination of a monarchy and a democracy. "

" Voice work is fun. But about three-quarters of the things you enjoy about acting are just not there. You're not working with another actor; you're not working with an audience. You're just working with a bunch of writers and a microphone. It's very abstract. "

" I actually was very proud of 'Dexter' and had a wonderful time doing it, which must make me an extremely weird person. "

" Will Ferrell is my new favorite person in the business. He's a completely adorable man. "

John Lithgow

Man

Business

" My very first role was when I was 2 1/2 years old; I was one of Nora's children in 'A Doll's House,' with my father playing Torvald. "

" People have expectations from you - and the whole fun of acting is taking expectations and completely upending them. That's how you get laughs in comedy, and that's how you scare the daylights out of people in a horror film. "

" I really prize and love great painting. "

" My eagerness to please sometimes gets the better of me. "

John Lithgow

Sometimes

Eagerness

" It's not always easy to be proud of your government. "

" I do all the cooking in the family. I cook Italian, mostly, pastas and roasts, and bit by bit, I'm learning how to bake. I think cooking is a gift to other people. "

" 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. "

" There is less difference than you would imagine entertaining little children and entertaining adults. "

" I do think - 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. "

" We're in the business of using real emotions to bring pretend emotions to life. "