John Lithgow Quotes

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

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.

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

I have a lot of faith in people.

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

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.

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.

Instead of being a theater actor who sometimes does movies I became a movie actor who sometimes does theater.

I really prize and love great painting. It's so out of date now. It's slightly come back in.

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

My snobbery made me do it.

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

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.

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

My father was a man of the theater. I grew up in a theater family. As a young man, as a boy, I gypsied around with my siblings and my parents to, like, eight different towns, went to eight different schools. All those things were extremely formative, and I think that's what happens.

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.

I certainly had my years as an out of work actor but I was married with a baby. My wife was supporting us.

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

Having grown up in the theater family, having done a huge amount of acting from a very little boy to precocious teenager in Shakespeare festivals that my father produced, I went off to college and fell in with the theater gang. I was already an experienced actor. I became a kind of campus star. I heard all this applause and laughter.

If you hear enough applause and laughter at a young enough age, you are doomed to become an actor.

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.

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.

Growing up I didn't want to be an actor. I sort of didn't want to go into the family business; the main reason being there was something I wanted to do far more, which was be an artist.

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.

I don't hesitate to do nudity as an actor if it's done well.

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.

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

It's very interesting, I had an extremely intense experience with my dad in 2002, when he was an old man and very ill and I was taking care of him and my mother, and he was extremely depressed, virtually lost the will to live, and I realized my main job was cheering him up to save his life.

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

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

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.