I must have seen The Jolson Story (1946) twenty-seven times. I was just smitten by Al Jolson. He had such an unbelievable impact on the audience, and I wanted to do that, too.

I've had this same nightmare often over the years, and it is that I go onstage and forget my script. I'm standing there empty. It's disastrous, and then I wake up. In reality it's a nightmare that has never happened, but I've had embarrassing moments in auditions where your confidence just drops out of you. As I've gotten older, with more reputation and therefore more at stake, I've gotten worse at audition.

As an actor you have a sort of filing cabinet in your mind. if you're sitting in the subway, you're always studying people and you file them back there in your mind. They'll show up some day in one of the characters you portray.

[on John Hirsch after a dispute on the King of Kensington (1975) set]: He had the same explosiveness as I did. He and I were one. He was eccentric, but he was practical too. He didn't make [the production staff] apologize. He just came to me and said, 'I'm apologizing. You're right. Everybody knows what you're doing for the guest stars. Please keep it up'.