Alan Alda
Alan Alda
Alan Aldais an American actor, director, screenwriter, and author. A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner, he is widely known for his roles as Captain Hawkeye Pierce in the TV series M*A*S*H and Arnold Vinick in The West Wing. He has also appeared in many feature films, most notably in Crimes and Misdemeanorsas pretentious television producer Lester and in The Aviatoras U.S. Senator Owen Brewster, the latter of which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth28 January 1936
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
For a while in my teens, I was sure I had it. It was about getting to heaven. If heaven existed and lasted forever, then a mere lifetime spent scrupulously following orders was a small investment for an infinite payoff. One day, though, I realized I was no longer a believer, and realizing that, I couldn't go back.
Almost everybody that's well-known gets tagged with a nickname.
I found I wasn't asking good enough questions because I assumed I knew something.
If I can't get the girl, at least give me more money.
My relationship with science is as someone who's curious and hungry to know, hungry to understand. So all I have to offer is my ignorance and my curiosity, which is a good combination, as long as they come together.
The difference between listening and pretending to listen, I discovered, is enormous. One is fluid, the other is rigid. One is alive, the other is stuffed. Eventually, I found a radical way of thinking about listening. Real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you. When I’m willing to let them change me, something happens between us that’s more interesting than a pair of dueling monologues.
People who laugh together generally don't kill each other.
It isn't necessary to be rich and famous to be happy. It's only necessary to be rich.
I'm very interested in the improvisation because one of the things I do is to help train scientists to communicate in a better way and more personal way when they're making a presentation, and I use improvisation to do that.
No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle and good, without the world being better for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness.
I'll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia, I'll even 'hari-kari' if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!
Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself.
There are two things that I get a lot of pleasure from in my life, and that is, doing what I know how to do well - that really makes me happy. The other one, and probably an equal pleasure, is finding out how I can be helpful and then really being helpful.
Listening is being able to be changed by the other person.