Jason Alexander Quotes

Theater is very much the world I'd like to get back to, particularly in New York, both as an actor and director.

Really, the golden egg of doing a series is that you cross that very stupid bridge that says 'Name Actors Only' in casting sessions. All of a sudden, you become a name actor; it gives you marquee value. That's all that a series does.

Where are reliable journalism and reliable investigative voices going to come from? I love the days of old - the Walter Cronkites, the Dan Rathers.

I still don't know much about directing a movie.

We made a deal that was acceptable to us. We got paid very handsomely for our final season.

There's no good reason to change a Neil Simon line. The day that I'm funnier than Neil Simon, Hell will be a very chilly place.

Do people absolutely need the arts to get by day-to-day? You can make that claim, but they also really need a lot of things before that.

Directors get to fire on many more cylinders than an actor.

What is it about Iowa? I'm the shortest guy in the state.

You need to find the size of performance that's appropriate to the material, appropriate to the shot, or appropriate to the scene.

I had gone to the doctor. The doctor said, 'You're healthy as a horse. You've got two weight problems - two health problems because of your weight. Please do something.'

Many people don't know our famous 'soup kitchen' episode on Seinfeld was inspired by an actual soup restaurant off 8th Avenue in New York.

Jerry Seinfeld made a puddle, I stepped in it, and wonderful things happened.

I would work with any one of them again in a heartbeat because it was joyous and incredibly easy.

I have no illusions about having another 'Seinfeld' in my life.

The necessity for 'professionals' in the entertainment industry is being constantly challenged.

It's a question of finding the right thing, if I'm going to be an actor ... if I have to get up eight times a week for a number of months, I want to be excited and challenged from the day I start to the day I leave.

'Broadway Bound' is near and dear to my heart, as it was one of my happiest times on Broadway.

Comedy works best when people recognise themselves.

Well, let's put in this way, I grew up in West New York, New Jersey.

I'm not a director to make an action or horror film. That's not for me.

There is no community service in 'Seinfeld.' But rather than lauding that, I think it shows the insane banality of it.

I guess the Reagan era is defined as the 'I want it all for me, and screw everybody else' era.

Israel is near and dear to my heart

The world of the stage and the performance on the stage usually does not tend to translate very well - it doesn't tend to hold very well - once cameras are on it; it's not like it's terrible or embarrassing or bad anything, but, I, as an actor, would perform a role differently for an audience than I would for just cameras.

I can get motivated seeing a kid at my son's school overcome a learning disability.

The show is like an Edwardian play - emotional life gets stepped on for the sake of accepted manners, and that's terrific for actors to play in.

The Middle East is a very difficult stage to play upon. Without doubt, it is a good drama. And on occasion, there are situations so unimaginable, if not ludicrous, as to make them almost comic. But the cast is constantly changing, the audience is often disengaged, and it seems at times that no one is actually running the show.

Is it my end-all and be-all to become a standup comic? No.

If I could really move my career much more into predominantly directing, I would jump at that.

I do think that the days of gathering around a television set that functions merely as a television set, to receive a live broadcast of some networked programming, those days are probably numbered.

One of the reasons I love acting is because I'm so interested in other people's lives, and I often incorporate things I hear or observe into my work. I've become a bit of a 'person addict,' and so I like brushing up against lots of different characters.

Parking at a garage is like going to a prostitute. Why pay for it when you can apply yourself, and then may be you can get it for free.

Jerry Seinfeld has an interesting theory. He goes, '20 pounds up or down, and you lose your funny.'

Thrilled that Gov. Romney enjoys my old character. I enjoyed the character he used 2 b 2. If he'd embrace that again, he'd b a great candidate.

I'm still bald, I just wear a toupee.

Television, in particular, doesn't look for talent; it looks for personas. You have a great persona? You can be a TV star.

You know, because of the lack of budget, we had to find neighborhoods where time had stopped - kind of stuck in the '50s. And no place had that better than Staten Island.

Divorce is very difficult, especially on the kids. Of course, I'm the result of my parents having stayed together, so you never know.

I'm a singer and performer in a hybrid show that's standup, music and audience participation.

But one sets of grandparents lived on Davidson Avenue in the Bronx and one lived in Manhattan and I had an aunt and uncle in Queens, so in my heart I was a New Yorker.

Poker is just a hobby I'm passionate about. It's not supposed to bring glory.

I'm actually one of the more reluctant celebrities you will ever meet.

I've gotten a lot of compliments on the 'Criminal Minds' guy. I guess it's because the look of that character is so different from what people expect of me.

In New York, the theater is a destination point. In Los Angeles, no matter how provocative, how successful, how star-studded the theater event may be, it is, at best, a second-class citizen.

What you find with singers, no matter where they're from, if they have any kind of an accent, the accent tends to disappear when they sing.

I started balding at age 17 and after first being sad, I really embraced it.

I love smart comedy.

Every poker player, like every fisherman, needs to have a story in a box, and most poker stories are completely uninteresting.

I'm always more motivated by the pain of a funny character than by what makes him funny.

I cannot tell people who are struggling that I come first. I just cannot.

I was a shy and insecure kid and didn't know quite where I fit.

I have always wanted to play Sweeney in 'Sweeney Todd.'

Comedy lives on in the web and TV, but nobody's pressing comedy albums anymore.

The pilot of 'Seinfeld' was made and dropped. 'Seinfeld' was not supposed to go to series.

Most stand-up comics relish performing 'in one' - solo. They like the autonomy.