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"I know I'd like to have this epitaph: 'Curiosity did not kill this cat.' I'm curious. What is it like to be that person, in that circumstance at that time? It's the Depression, what's it like to be a kid the day he saw his father come home at one o'clock and not work for the next five years? What's it like to be black?  What's it like to be old?  What's it like doing this kind of job? How different would you be? How would you behave?"

"...once you find the rhythm of the character, for me anyway...the words just fall right into place."

"I'd been offered the pilot for 'Barney Miller,' but also I'd gotten an offer to star in a Broadway musical. I remember sitting in my manager's office. The Broadway producer had called and said he needed an answer by close of business. And I said cavalierly, 'All right, we've done Broadway. Let's try television.' We did the pilot, and that got us a mid-season replacement, which led to eight terrific seasons."

"Television can bring a certain amount of enlightenment. You're not gonna change the world with that one film, but you can make a little bit of a dent. If we can make enough dents, it's a hell of a medium because it reaches out to so many young minds as well as some entrenched minds. It can be quite gratifying when certain things take place."

"I understood very quickly the theory of how to make film work for you. Nothing exists outside of that box. What's in that box is what counts. Everything else can fall away and it doesn't matter. You create your own world."