Ted Danson Quotes

I was three. My father in jest said that he'd tell the doctor to give me a shot if I didn't behave. Good heavens, I have a mental picture of the living room and the doctor approaching the door. I was terrified.

I don't think it's a matter of, do you win the game or not, it's how gracefully do you play it.

My lessons didn't come at my father's knee. Like all good lessons, they were learned from example.

I had trouble hanging around [Shelley Long] until we stood onstage together, and then I was in heaven.

One of the hardest things for me to do is watch myself. The first time I see it, I am obsessed with my left ear or my right ear or some other physical attribute, or the fact that I'm 60 or whatever shallow ego thought is running through my head. I'm just destroyed that I'm not Cary Grant or whatever.

To the naked eye, our oceans are beautiful. But scientists tell us that all of the world's fisheries will collapse by 2048, unless we change how we manage them. Help protect our oceans so the next generation can also enjoy their bounty.

When you have brothers, you learn to be fiercely competitive with someone you love so they won't kill you and you won't kill them.

When people are in the midst of really heavy stuff and still have a sense of humor, I admire that.

One person goes off and works in Houston the other person goes off to London and you're on the phone to each other and somebody is paying you to kiss somebody else. It's very bizarre being an actor.

If you actively do something, it will stop making you feel like a victim and you'll start feeling like part of the solution, which is just a huge benefit to your body and your psyche.

I'm from L.A. I'm an actor. I'm a flake.

Sharks have swum the oceans for over 400 million years, but we're threatening this critically important species for the purpose of making soup - it's sad and wasteful.

I'm almost tempted, when I'm playing a real person, not to meet them. Afterwards, maybe. But, the job is the same. You still have to show up on screen and be alive and real and all that stuff.

I moved into this neighborhood, and I was walking on this beach with my kids, and we came across a sign that said, 'Water's polluted, no swimming.' And I didn't have any answers.

Humor can bring people under the tent. And a good joke can deflect some of the intensity surrounding a serious subject.

I was at our beautiful home in Martha's Vineyard, near Boston, sitting on the porch looking at the ocean when I got a phone called and was asked, 'Would I like to do 'CSI'?' A week later, I'm at a coroner's office in Las Vegas, participating in a quadruple autopsy.

I've never been that guy who says, 'Ooh, I have to play King Lear'. First off, that'd be a disaster anyway. I tend to read something and see who's involved, and then know I want to be part of it. But I don't think I'm through with comedy. I still love to make people laugh.

At the time, my 6-year-old kept thinking my character's name was "Sam Alone," which is kind of brilliant. The funny came out of Sam's sad core: the alcoholic, the sex addict, the person who thinks he's God's gift.

I became interested in ocean issues in the 1980s when I couldn't take my daughters swimming because of pollution at our local beach. Twenty-five years later, I'm a board member of Oceana, the world's largest international organization dedicated to ocean conservation.

You should always carry string, according to my archaeologist father, because then you could at least make a trap to catch animals to survive. According to my grandmother, it was clean underwear.

Many people continue to think of sharks as man-eating beasts. Sharks are enormously powerful and wild creatures, but you're more likely to be killed by your kitchen toaster than a shark!

One of the ingredients that made Cheers work so well was the great ensemble of actors we had. That's the case with any good series.

My reward in life for growing up a little bit was that Mary Steenburgen came into my life, and we have been together for 19 years.

You have to be an optimist, right? You have to be critical, then you have to be an optimist. Or else you're really stupid.

My temperament is not the adventuresome sort that enjoys starting new projects every six months. I love ensemble, nine-to-five stability. There's a family dynamic in making a television show that you don't get on a movie, where you're a hired gun for a few months.

We only have ten years to save the oceans

To do something funny, you have to have experienced it in real life and digested it in a way that amuses you.

California is responsible for selling, trading and distributing large amounts of shark fins that come from all over the world.

Address these environmental issues and you will address every issue known to man. And we keep dabbling in things that aren't really that important in the long term.

If you take one rivet out of an airplane, it will be all right, it'll keep flying. You take another rivet out of the airplane and it still flies. So what the heck, let's take more rivets out of the airplane, and sooner or later, the airplane drops from the sky.

You reach a certain age, and you realize, 'Wow: there are younger people doing this better than I can, and don't leave me out - I don't want to be left behind. I want to do it, too. Where are you going? I want to be part of it.'

The planet will survive. Whether we get to be here and enjoy it, or enjoy life as we've known it, is what's questionable.

I'm an actor, so I am always scared. You never know if you are on vacation or that you have been retired and they just didn't tell you.

These are some huge donuts...

Years ago, we all talked about recycling and not dumping things down your drain and all of that, but talking doesn't help much. Basically, it's going to have to be legislation because the impact is so huge and diversified.

I eat less, stretch, and work out.

I was going through so many changes in my life - separation with my wife, having an affair - that was all very messy and public. It felt like if I really wanted to rock my boat and make changes in my life and who I am and how I am, that would also mean moving on from Cheers.

I think there are probably a handful of real character actors in this business. The rest of us are recycling. So now I'm Sam Malone the editor. I'm Sam Malone the billionaire.

I got my first television at Stanford when I was 20, and I used to watch 'The Dick Van Dyke Show'. He played my father on 'Becker,' and he's still one of my heroes. Along with John Cleese, he's my favourite physical comedian.

Sharks are in real trouble, and they need all the help they can get.

Cloning, wow. Who would have thought? There should be a list of people who can and cannot clone themselves.

I am a bit of a Pollyanna - I spend most of my day happy.

We are so arrogant, we forget that we are not the reason for evolution, we are not the point of evolution. We are part of evolution. Unfortunately, we believe that we've been created to dominate the planet, to dominate nature. Ain't true.

The industrial way we fish for seafood is harming the marine habitats that all ocean life depends upon. Indiscriminate commercial fishing practices that include miles of driftnets, long lines with thousands of lethal hooks and bottom trawls are ruining ocean ecosystems by killing non-seafood species, including sea turtles and marine mammals.

I don't get a sense that Cheers is revered the way it should be by [younger viewers]. In my mind, it's a show that should always, always, always be in the pantheon. But can it ever mean to future generations what it meant to us?

My joints hurt. I'm slower. But I remember what it was like to run and play with the boys. I want to be one of the boys.

The environmental movement, like all political processes, reacts best to disasters. But these are very slow, very gradual disasters in the making.

To grow up knowing you're loved is astounding. It's a huge gift to a child.

I am forever grateful for 'Cheers.'

I'm at the right age to work with dead people, but you have to be smart to be a CSI.

The poor are too busy working to need justice.

We are all in this together. We will all make it or none of us will make it. If everyone cleans up their act except one big ole country, it isn't going to work.

Individuals of all ages can make an important difference in the overall health of our ocean by the actions they take every day. Simple things like picking up trash on the beach, recycling and conserving water can have a big impact on the health of our ocean.

I tell you, the difference for me is between being victimized, terrorized, numbed by reading about different disasters, or reducing the anxiety by getting up and doing something about it, at whatever level.

Usually if you're the center of a show, part of your job is to host its energy.

My most annoying habit is complaining about my aches and pains. It's the new ones that I haven't identified yet that make me nervous. According to my wife, I complain way too much. I may be a borderline hypochondriac, or you could say I am fascinated by the body - at least by mine.

I am so grateful that I accepted the offer to do 'CSI,' but it was like being shot out of a cannon, and it was so different from anything that I have ever done.

It's not enough to have good thoughts for the world. You must get out there! It is also really important that each person realise their own worth. If you don't think you're good enough, how can you turn around and help save the world?

I don't think I'm as educated as Whoopi, so I'm lifting myself to her level. But you know, our view of the world, our view of what we can do, our sense of what it means to be here, are similar.

My father went to work every day, and it's my job to go to work, too. Some days will be good, some won't be so good, but I have to go to work.

I used to have a little silent prayer: 'Dear God, let my ability to get work be the same as my celebrity.' That would be a hard burden: to be a household name and not be able to get work.

I try not to see Woody Harrelson because he has become this big movie star, and it grates, so I try and stay away from him.

It is particularly appropriate that we unveil this campaign on this first day of the annual international coastal clean-up effort, ... Beach cleanups are something each of us can do any time of the year. I'm proud to be participating in the cleanup efforts today and I encourage everyone to make the time for these types of activities.

Around year seven or eight, you'd kill yourself when you realized Norm had to enter and you had to come up with a new beer joke.