On Life

"What I hate most in life is prejudice; having made up your mind about a person, a group or a situation before you have actually experienced it. You form this opinion and therefore the world is that. Don't make decisions until you do it or at least are in the room where it's being done."

Soap Opera Weekly, February 24, 1998

 

"No, I believe in free will. I think conditions are such, and environments are such, that the stress can create a very loaded deck and ultimately you're the guy that lays the cards on the table. But I don't care if you were abused by your family, that's no excuse to go and shoot your mother. I don't care if they threw you out. That's not an excuse to burn down their house."

Soap Opera Weekly, February 24, 1998

 

"I am responsible in my life, and there is great joy in it. I take my good choices, I take my bad choices, and at this stage in my life, I go, 'You know, it wasn't so bad.'"

Soap Opera Weekly, February 24, 1998

 

"A cynic is a romantic who's seen the world."

Soap Opera Weekly, February 24, 1998

On Places

"I like the light there," he quips. "It's very soft. I happen to look really good there. People have always said to me, 'You're such a New Yorker,' and I've always taken that as a compliment. But they're about 2,000 miles off. I'm a European at heart."

Soap Opera Digest, Spring 1996

 

"I've lived there since 1967, and never really enjoyed a day.... I think there was a day in about 1983 that I had a good time because the sun was out and there was.... But it's...it's not a...it's not a happy place."

The Rosie O'Donnell Show, January 1997, on Los Angeles

On Love

"I lost my mom this summer, and my father died five years before that. They were high school sweethearts...the perfect soap opera. I swear. They were never with another person. I know that. And I know that when my father died my mother knew that she would see him again, because they were eternal together. She was like a woman waiting for a bus at the time my dad died. Then the bus came along, and it was a beautiful thing. So I of all people would never dismiss or have any sly feelings about young love. I've seen it, benefited from it and believe in it."

Soap Opera Weekly, February 24, 1998

On Himself

"People don't like me. When I'm working, I'm great. But when I'm not, I'm not easy to be around. I get crazed with frustration, my energy all goes interior and I become a real mess, and that's why people don't like me."

Soap Opera Digest, January 6, 1981

 

"You know what I really want? I want to be a multimillionaire and I want to have a studio and I want to produce and direct and act and get all my favorite people together and watch them play--I really do! That's what I've always wanted and that's what I'm going for. I'm still connected to my own family and I have a lot of support from them. I don't feel a need to get married and create my own family out here."

Soap Opera Digest, January 6, 1981

 

"I'm sure that I've been here before and that I'll keep coming back until I get it right. And once I do, I won't have to play this game anymore, although right now I'm very fond of the physical game and I don't want to die. I think that I'm here to communicate and the best way I can do that is to act.... I feel that many of the people I know and work with are people I've known in past lives. Jackie Zeman and I have known each other before and we both know it was in France. First impressions, I think are many times memories."

Soap Opera Digest, January 6, 1981

 

"Anger is a great motivator of mine. I just don't want to fade out--I want to burn out. I want to go out with a Viking funeral."

TV Guide, October 16, 1993

 

"I've seen 'em come, I've seen 'em go, but I'm still standing."

Soap Opera Digest, Spring 1996

 

"Partying in my family means eating and talking. There's no drinking, because we come from Mormon stock. Even though some of us don't adhere to the religion, at least we got the wisdom of the word."

Soap Opera Digest, Spring 1996

 

"Oh, yeah, but I'm not saying it would be a book about soap operas. I believe in people's privacy, and I think it would be bad karma to tell the stories about people I know. But I'm definitely writing a book about me and my life in art, such as it's been. That's definitely in the works. I have notes on it from back to 1973. I've been keeping journals all my life for one reason or another. I just think my own history is important to me. The day is going to come in my life when we find out that what I was all this time wasn't an actor but a writer. I plan to retire from acting when it becomes too impossible to light me anymore--and then I'll be writing. But I write now. I have short stories, I have plays. My journals tend to be flights of fancy rather than diaries, so, yeah, there's a book or two there."

Soap Opera Magazine, November 19, 1996, on whether he'll write a book

 

"I'm learning several languages and speak pieces of several languages. For example, I could work as an actor in Holland, as long as I can play very small children."

TV Guide website, April 2, 1997

 

"Ah, there it is. Having no children or ex-wives to support, I'm able to lavish my money and attention on myself, which is one of the reasons you find me as happy and content as I am today."

Soap Opera News, June 3, 1997

 

"Friendship to me is to be with somebody without a lot of editing, which I don't have with many people."

Soap Opera News, June 3, 1997

 

"If I can't get out of town, I like to Rollerblade all day in the sun."

Soap Opera Digest, July 22, 1997, on what he does on his days off

 

"Bali, because of the pretty people and the nude beach."

Soap Opera Digest, July 22, 1997, on where he'd most like to live

 

"It changes. Right now, it's 'Neighborhood' by Space."

Soap Opera Digest, July 22, 1997, on the song that cheers him up

On His Appearance

"One critic recently said I had thin tips, a weak chin, a sallow complexion and a receding hairline. Hey, if someone thinks that's sexy, don't take it out on me. I didn't try to be a sex symbol, folks--it came with the dinner."

People, November 16, 1981

 

"I couldn't get arrested in this town because they said I was too special, too strange, not good looking enough, too good looking, my eyebrows were too bushy, whatever."

December 20, 1983 (reprinted in Soap Opera Digest, November 24, 1998

 

"I'll be 49 on May 29th. Almost half a century. Look damn good for my age. Especially in Holland, where the light is better."

Soap Opera Digest, Spring 1996

 

"Ya, that's the Andy Warhol look."

The Rosie O'Donnell Show, January 1997, on his "Twist of Fate" hair-style

 

"I finally dragged myself into this century. I had to go to Europe to do it, though."

TV Guide website, April 2, 1997, on his new short haircut

 

"Oh, I just remember how hot it was and how I hate my hair."

TV Guide website, May 14, 1997, on what he remembers about L&L's wedding

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