I had never really thought about acting as art. You know, growing up in Youngstown, the Rust Belt of the world, it was always just a form of entertainment. Finally seeing it as an art form, I fell in love with it. So I moved out to California, never having visited before.

I always live by the idea that my favorite job is my next one. It doesn't really matter what the content is.

My mentor Jon Simmons introduced me to the Stanislavski system, which is so heavy on back-story. So you write and write and write these back stories about a character and then you throw it away. So then on set, if it doesn't come, then you didn't do your work.

I just look at the character and the arc of the character, and see if it's going to be challenging. We always want to challenge ourselves. That's the biggest thing that I look at. Is this going to be a challenge? Is this going to be something that I can try my best to create, that no one could see anyone else do?

No god ever gave any man anything, nor ever answered any prayer at any time - nor ever will.

Western democracies exalt the ideal of social equality, but our economic system arguably emerged from 16th-century Calvinism, a religion whose members believed that God showed favor by bestowing wealth and other forms of success on what they called 'the chosen.'

The apostles were moved, not so much by an intellectual apprehension, as by a spiritual illumination. They met men, and the need of those men whom they met cried aloud to them.

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me'.