It depends how lenient you are with your definition of artist. If you're going to include those who tap dance at the high school recital, then maybe I am.

I didn't become an actor until I was an old man of 28 or 29. I declared to the world that I was an actor. Nobody heard me, but I did declare it.

Your instincts for what's dramatic are the same whether you're working on a drawing or on a script.

I remember being amazed that actors had a union. I thought only coal miners had unions, or guys that worked in automobile plants. That's an indication of how naive I was.

The first time I ever spoke to John Cassavetes was at a Lakers game. I got up to go for a hot dog, and he was coming in the opposite direction. I don't know who said hello first, but we started talking, and it turned out that he went to high school with my first wife, Alice.

I'm just looking to get through the day.

I came to Hollywood and nobody knew me. I was on a coupla TV shows.

I never understood a word John Cassavetes said. And I think he did that deliberately.

If your mind is at work, we're in danger of reproducing another cliche. If we can keep our minds out of it and our thoughts out of it, maybe we'll come up with something original.

Columbo was never comfortable if somebody considered him unique or smart.

In 1958, I was shooting a movie in Florida, and I decided to go to Havana, Cuba, to see what it was like.

Even the first year of 'Columbo,' 'Columbo' was Jesus Christ, No. 1, you know.

When I was a kid growing up, you maybe secretly wanted to be an actor, but you never said.

When I was young, I was looking for people to look up to - role models I could respect.

To be totally sincere, I'd surely be a better actor today if I hadn't played Columbo all these years.

Before we ever had a script or anything, I was attracted to the idea of playing a character that housed within himself two opposing traits.

I just keep working.

I got a regret: That I started acting so late. I was 27, and guys who start at 18 or so, there's this kinda continuity of friendships they form in the profession by startin' young, I've never had that.

I had no idea when I graduated from high school and then from graduate school what I wanted to do with my life. I had no idea that I was ever going to be an actor.

Going to Hartford turned out to be the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.

The celebrity craze is a little much. But it's good for me, so you don't bite the hand that feeds you.

I like stories that grow, that have unpredictable layers. As opposed to Hollywood movies that start out with a lot of shock and noise and peter out into an unconvincing cliche.

In the beginning, when you're acting in amateur theater and off-Broadway, it was unheard of that anyone else would get your costume. And it was important to get a good costume. You put time into that.

To be a theater actor, I think you have to do plays all the time.

Sure, I miss some things about the stage. The thing I like is the immediacy. But then I complain, 'I gotta do the same part for six months.'

There's a bit of a problem. The script that I like, the network doesn't like. The script that they like, I don't like.

I used to dread somebody saying, 'Whatsa matter with your eye?'

You think you're in another civilization, another time, and then you see antennas coming out of these hovels, and your mouth falls open when you see the descendants of the Incas shouting 'Columbo! Columbo!'

I love Chicago. It's one of the great cities. I'm crazy about the town. It reminds me of New York when it was at its best, the New York that used to be and is no more. I love the architecture, the old stuff and the new stuff.

I used to take girls out on a date to Night Court. And I'll tell you, most girls, they got a kick out of going to Night Court. 'Cause you get a lot of laughs... and it's cheap.

What wouldn't have happened to me if I hadn't ended up in Hartford, Connecticut.

There isn't an Eskimo who doesn't love 'Columbo.'

Strange thing, this television.

I'm secretly very stuffy.

Oh, I was some efficiency expert. On my first day, I couldn't find my own office in Hartford and wound up in the Post Office.

Certainly, you envy the guys that have done all kinds of things, a variety of good scripts and good directors. Then again, having worked with Cassavetes has satisfied a big part of that.

I never turned a part down when they offered me money.

Along came a police lieutenant named Columbo, and my life would never be the same.

I once did a film in Russia because I wanted to see what the hell was going on there.

I've been there a thousand years, and I never felt comfortable. Beverly Hills - when I first saw it, I thought they put it up this morning. You got to pack water to get to the drugstore.

Acting is like golf: analysis leads to paralysis.

If you were brought up in the '40s, a kid in Ossining, New York, hanging out at the poolroom and stealing, how can you think, 'Here I am in Ossining. I, too, can be a movie star!'

Everybody wants to be a movie star. I bet if you ask that guy would he like to be a movie star, he'd say, 'Sure.'

Most people think glamor is happiness.