I'm just looking to get through the day.

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 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.

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

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.

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 think people identify with Columbo because he is an average man.

I do figure every angle of a guy I'm acting - but not consciously 'til afterward.

In the theater, you didn't have any marks. Your instincts in rehearsal told you what the blocking was. On film, they reversed it. They decided ahead of time what your instincts were, before you even arrived.

I don't dwell on it. But I guess everybody hopes that they go in their sleep and that it won't be long and painful.

If it wasn't for the Mark Twain Masquers, I don't know where my life would have gone.

I did do my own stunts.

If I'm a guy reading a newspaper, and I hear this actor who I know gets great seats at basketball games, and he's complaining about being typecast, I think, 'Hey man, count your blessings.'

I'm old fashioned. I really think you should know how to draw before you start painting. I use charcoal and graphite; I put a skylight in. In my house, I turned the garage into an art studio. So I'm awash in art studios.

Usually, I get hired because I'm tall.

There were no artists in Ossining, which was the home of Sing Sing prison. Most of the parents of the guys I knew were guards there.

I was a street-guy villain. I was a street-corner villain. I was an illiterate villain. All rough edges.

You thought the stage, you thought Broadway: that was the pot at the end of the rainbow. The idea of being in Hollywood was like going to the Moon or Mars.

I don't like getting up in the morning, getting in a car, driving on a freeway, and stopping at a gate where two guards are standing there, then walk into a studio that looks like a bunch of airplane hangars.

I watch practically no TV - ah, what the hell do I watch? Oh, I was for a long time addicted to CNN.

I used to have this idea that you can spend years in the movies and TV and then, at the drop of a hat, say 'Oh, I'll go back and do the theater.'

I've worked with some terrific actors. The list of guys that came on the 'Columbo' show, I mean they were world-class actors from all over the world - Oskar Werner, Laurence Harvey, Donald Pleasence, you know... foreigners.

You talk about what a director, he was smart. He said, Turn the camera on!

Good actors are always looking for props. They're looking for behavior. It makes it a lot easier. You're not solely dependent of what's coming out of your mouth. You're also less self-conscious, less aware of the camera.