Stand up is really fun because if I think of a joke or a funny idea, then I can just go and tell some people and if they laugh, they laugh right away.

I love Tennessee, but they don't have the pine trees and the sandy soil and the black water that I grew up around.

Aaron and I will be joined at the hip until the day we die. We have loved and hated each other since the day he was born. He's very much a part of my heart. He's going to broadcasting college now, and he'll do fine. But he came into a world that did not welcome him.

My experience on 'The West Wing' was, I think, now rare in that I was pretty young, and I walked into this environment where Aaron Sorkin was giving me a script every week, and Thomas Schlamme and John Wells were keeping the studio off my back, at least as best as they could.

I've never cared for the idea of a career path, or where a film might 'take me.' My love is for acting not money, so I only take on roles that I find challenging, in stories I find interesting.

Kosher salt, eggs and flour. These are the building blocks of everything. Kosher salt, above and beyond everything.

As love without esteem is capricious and volatile; esteem without love is languid and cold.

I appreciate what I have a lot more than I did when I was younger.

I like the fact that when you're put into a really extreme situation, you put everything else aside. You put your ego aside and get on with it, and I quite like that.

I'm like Madonna: I'm Ming-Na. Just my first and middle name. That's it. Pure and simple.

I thought about running a marathon a long time ago, but I'm just not a runner.

Larry Hagman was a huge star, and he was carrying my stuff for me.

I don't look at our society today too much. My focus is still in the past, and part of the reason is because what I do - the wellspring of art, or what I do - l get from the blues. So I listen to the music of a particular period that I'm working on, and I think inside the music is clues to what is happening with the people.

One of the things you have to be able to do, as a comic strip artist, is to draw things repeatedly from a variety of angles, so you need references, and you find the best picture you can.

The Danish glee: the national version of cheerfulness.