John Lithgow Quotes

Author Image

John Lithgow

Profession : Actor

Birth : October 19, 1945

The theater is my power center, and I love doing it in New York.

John Lithgow

Every time I see somebody behaving truly insanely in real life, I think, 'Yes! I'm not over the top after all!'

John Lithgow

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.

John Lithgow

The zombie is the new, sort of, archetype of our times.

John Lithgow

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.

John Lithgow

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.

John Lithgow

It's pretty rare that I see a film that I did a long, long time ago.

John Lithgow

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

John Lithgow

My wife is a professor at UCLA in Los Angeles, but otherwise, I'd be right back living on the Upper West Side.

John Lithgow

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.

John Lithgow

There's no more private family than the royal family. People who can really only be themselves with each other. The rest of us just spend all our time fascinated by them.

John Lithgow

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

John Lithgow

The Wodehouse language is so rich and detailed and hilarious.

John Lithgow

I loved playing Roberta Muldoon!

John Lithgow

It's very important to stay creative and not simply to wait around for people to want you. It's the hardest thing about the business.

John Lithgow

I'm very concerned for the future of the earth and its amazing creatures. We've got to be careful and make sure we don't foul our own nest.

John Lithgow

There's nothing like spending an evening with an audience every night.

John Lithgow

I got to have a great big knock-down, drag-out fight with Sylvester Stallone. Every actor should have that much fun at some point. You can hit him as hard as you can, and it's never enough for him.

John Lithgow

In 1995, I proposed the Harvard Arts Medal. The idea was to celebrate the fact that, although it's rare, Harvard men and women do go into the creative arts. Over the years we've had major, major figures, like Jack Lemmon, John Updike, Yo-Yo Ma, and Bonnie Raitt.

John Lithgow

I'm too much of a Libra. I too often see the other person's point of view and capitulate, even though I have strong political convictions. It's just my liability. Maybe I'm too empathetic. That's the actor in me.

John Lithgow