Jason Alexander Quotations

Usually, characters that are doing something nefarious have some extra layers to them. The general rule is bad people don't necessarily think they are bad.

Israel is near and dear to my heart

Well, let's put in this way, I grew up in West New York, New Jersey.

It specifically says in the Torah that you can eat shrimp and bacon in a Chinese restaurant.

As George Costanza would say, when they're applauding, stop.

Things that make me laugh range from a wonderful stand-up like Jerry Seinfeld, Louis C.K. and Chris Rock to my son Gabe, who does great improv work. I also look backwards to the great comedic actors like Jackie Gleason, Paul Lynde and Phil Silvers.

I can get motivated seeing a kid at my sons school overcome a learning disability.

The thing about For Better or Worse is the only thing that made me an okay director for that is that I have a sense of humor, and it was supposed to be funny.

I'm always more motivated by the pain of a funny character than by what makes him funny.

I would work with any one of them again in a heartbeat because it was joyous and incredibly easy.

But one sets of grandparents lived on Davidson Avenue in the Bronx and one lived in Manhattan and I had an aunt and uncle in Queens, so in my heart I was a New Yorker.

We made a deal that was acceptable to us. We got paid very handsomely for our final season.

But I didn't know much about directing a movie.

Parking at a garage is like going to a prostitute. Why pay for it when you can apply yourself, and then may be you can get it for free.

Acting is not terribly important work, and I have always felt a bit of guilt about pursuing something that is so selfish. I love doing it, but it is never something that feels like it's going to change or save the world.

I found that looking at the Israeli/Palestinian conflict from an outside vantage point was actually quite distancing. The history of the conflict, the personalities, the violence, the distrust, and the seeming lack of viable solutions made meaningful involvement feel impossible. What changed that, for me, was changing the vantage point.

I'm still bald, I just wear a toupee.

Television, in particular, doesn't look for talent; it looks for personas. You have a great persona? You can be a TV star.

I think with challenge comes a little more fun.

Even when I was an actor in training, one criticism my teachers had was that I should think about directing instead of acting, because the best actors see the material they're working on through blinders. They can't see anything but their role. I could never really do that.

Life and families and babies are all joyous gifts. But if we do not begin to truly account for our numbers, we will surely create an ecological crisis that will only lead to anguish and despair.

There is no community service in Seinfeld. But rather than lauding that, I think it shows the insane banality of it.

People this stupid shouldn't be allowed to live.

The actress (Heidi Swedberg) is this wonderful girl, and ... I love her! i couldn't figure out how to play off of her. Her instincts for doing a scene - where the comedy was - and mine were always misfiring.

Divorce is very difficult, especially on the kids. Of course, I'm the result of my parents having stayed together, so you never know.

Boston was a great town to go to college in. Maybe that's why there's so many colleges there. I love the town, and I loved Boston University.

Thrilled that Gov. Romney enjoys my old character. I enjoyed the character he used 2 b 2. If he'd embrace that again, he'd b a great candidate.

Many people don't know our famous 'soup kitchen' episode on Seinfeld was inspired by an actual soup restaurant off 8th Avenue in New York.

Most stand-up comics relish performing 'in one' - solo. They like the autonomy.

Poker is just a hobby I'm passionate about. It's not supposed to bring glory.

One of the reasons I love acting is because I'm so interested in other people's lives, and I often incorporate things I hear or observe into my work. I've become a bit of a 'person addict,' and so I like brushing up against lots of different characters.

One of the downsides of being a poker pro is that people see exactly how you play.

I can get motivated seeing a kid at my son's school overcome a learning disability.

I have always wanted to play Sweeney in 'Sweeney Todd.'

I have actually lost a couple of roles - film roles - because a director or producer thought I looked too much like George Costanza, and I could not get out of that box.

I find when somebody says to me, 'I'm going to motivate you,' more often than not, they're not going to get me.

I found that looking at the Israeli/Palestinian conflict from an outside vantage point was actually quite distancing. The history of the conflict, the personalities, the violence, the distrust, and the seeming lack of viable solutions made meaningful involvement feel impossible. What changed that, for me, was changing the vantage point.

There is no community service in 'Seinfeld.' But rather than lauding that, I think it shows the insane banality of it.

What you find with singers, no matter where they're from, if they have any kind of an accent, the accent tends to disappear when they sing.

I think that I have very few personal gifts to bring to real politics.

I went into performing for the community. Being backstage with your company of fellows is the best part of working in live theater. That energy, that combined focus, the synergy - it's addictive.

Jerry Seinfeld made a puddle, I stepped in it, and wonderful things happened.

Jerry Seinfeld has an interesting theory. He goes, '20 pounds up or down, and you lose your funny.'

Really, the golden egg of doing a series is that you cross that very stupid bridge that says 'Name Actors Only' in casting sessions. All of a sudden, you become a name actor; it gives you marquee value. That's all that a series does.

I was the teenage kid growing up in New Jersey watching the Tony Awards and thinking, 'Oh, maybe if I'm lucky I'll make it to Broadway by the time I'm 40!'

I was heavy as a kid. I mean, I kind of got it together for a while there in my 20s and early 30s.

Theater is very much the world I'd like to get back to, particularly in New York, both as an actor and director.

I was a shy and insecure kid and didn't know quite where I fit.

Most of the musical film work that I have done has been in this realm of what I think of as real family entertainment.

We purposely created Bob out of the ashes of George. I would be insane not to measure things against 'Seinfeld.' I've stolen as much of the 'Seinfeld' crew as I could to give me a hedge.

You know, because of the lack of budget, we had to find neighborhoods where time had stopped - kind of stuck in the '50s. And no place had that better than Staten Island.

The pilot of 'Seinfeld' was made and dropped. 'Seinfeld' was not supposed to go to series.

Where are reliable journalism and reliable investigative voices going to come from? I love the days of old - the Walter Cronkites, the Dan Rathers.

When CNN does a story and then says, 'Tweet us what you think' - why? Why does it matter what I think? Why should my thoughts be broadcast on a national news program? It's enough for me to just sit and listen and learn.

There are always things that I'd love to do. As an actor, none of them are specific; all I'm looking for are things that are good quality, that are challenging for me to work on, and even better if I get to work with people that I respect and am excited to work with.

What is it about Iowa? I'm the shortest guy in the state.

We see and hear about Israelis and Palestinians only when they are defined by the global media as 'occupiers,' 'terrorists,' and 'victims.' But we forget that they are fathers and mothers and sons and daughters and neighbors and doctors and shop-owners and farmers and students.

'Broadway Bound' is near and dear to my heart, as it was one of my happiest times on Broadway.

Every poker player, like every fisherman, needs to have a story in a box, and most poker stories are completely uninteresting.

Directors get to fire on many more cylinders than an actor.

Do people absolutely need the arts to get by day-to-day? You can make that claim, but they also really need a lot of things before that.

I still don't know much about directing a movie.

Isn't it time you came out and told the world what you believe?

Issues can be addressed without the interference of a third party.

I started balding at age 17 and after first being sad, I really embraced it.

Is it my end-all and be-all to become a standup comic? No.

The show is like an Edwardian play - emotional life gets stepped on for the sake of accepted manners, and that's terrific for actors to play in.

Actors go, 'I just want to act.' And I say to them, 'You know, stop for a second and think about what charges you up the most. Do you want to be on the stage, do you want to be in film, do you want to be a comic actor? Do you just want to make it for the money and capitalize on your look and do commercials and soaps?'

Do you want to have a career that goes beyond, you know, 11 minutes in a 22-minute television show every week? Some people don't. That's fine.

You need to find the size of performance that's appropriate to the material, appropriate to the shot, or appropriate to the scene.

It's a question of finding the right thing, if I'm going to be an actor... if I have to get up eight times a week for a number of months, I want to be excited and challenged from the day I start to the day I leave.

I've gotten a lot of compliments on the 'Criminal Minds' guy. I guess it's because the look of that character is so different from what people expect of me.

The world of the stage and the performance on the stage usually does not tend to translate very well - it doesn't tend to hold very well - once cameras are on it; it's not like it's terrible or embarrassing or bad anything, but, I, as an actor, would perform a role differently for an audience than I would for just cameras.

The necessity for 'professionals' in the entertainment industry is being constantly challenged.

The Middle East is a very difficult stage to play upon. Without doubt, it is a good drama. And on occasion, there are situations so unimaginable, if not ludicrous, as to make them almost comic. But the cast is constantly changing, the audience is often disengaged, and it seems at times that no one is actually running the show.

I kept being asked by corporations to do corporate gigs. And I said, 'I don't have anything. I'm not a stand-up. You want me to come sing show tunes for you? I don't think so.'

I'm actually one of the more reluctant celebrities you will ever meet.

I'm not a director to make an action or horror film. That's not for me.

I know what it's like to be in the closet! I know what it's like to be bullied and attacked because someone or some group thought I was different or below them... so, I'm coming out of the closet as an ally of equality for everyone; as an ally to hope.

I met the real George Steinbrenner on only one occasion when he actually came and played himself on an episode of 'Seinfeld.' He seemed to really enjoy himself. I did not get to know him, but the fact that he allowed himself and his beloved team to be satirized on our show is an indication to me of his true character.

I have no illusions about having another 'Seinfeld' in my life.

I'm a singer and performer in a hybrid show that's standup, music and audience participation.

In New York, the theater is a destination point. In Los Angeles, no matter how provocative, how successful, how star-studded the theater event may be, it is, at best, a second-class citizen.

I guess the Reagan era is defined as the 'I want it all for me, and screw everybody else' era.

I had gone to the doctor. The doctor said, 'You're healthy as a horse. You've got two weight problems - two health problems because of your weight. Please do something.'

If I could really move my career much more into predominantly directing, I would jump at that.

I do think that the days of gathering around a television set that functions merely as a television set, to receive a live broadcast of some networked programming, those days are probably numbered.

I cannot tell people who are struggling that I come first. I just cannot.

Comedy lives on in the web and TV, but nobody's pressing comedy albums anymore.

The greatest part of the job was... that was for nine years it was a pleasure to go to work.

And New York needs no explanation. I mean, if you come from Sandusky, Ohio or West New York, New Jersey, you have to start explaining.

The downside of being a celebrity is that people kind of know about you, and you really don't need them to know about you - you need them to know about your work.

The mandate of our show is to find what makes us laugh. We had tough shoes to fill for this role, and finding someone to fit the character of Jeffrey was a challenge, if not a miracle. But when miracles happen, you don't question them.