Joe Mantegna's Quotes

Whenever you're going to play a real person, you run the risk of well, everybody in the world kind of has an image of what that person is and who he should be and so you really have to do your homework.

You learn that not all things fall into a certain kind of pattern that can be predictable and that can be understandable and that's going to be easy, you know.

There's good and evil going on. We have cops. We have robbers.

I mean, it's the life lessons that I suppose you learn that nobody gets a free ride and that you do the best you can with the means that you can and try to open yourself to as much knowledge and all that that you can.

But we're still in somewhat a Puritanical society in a lot of ways.

Dean Martin is one of my heroes.

For every Mother Teresa, there's a Jeffrey Dahmer.

For the last thirty years in my career I never know what I'm doing next.

I did plays and movies and whatever all over the place.

I mean, believe me, I'm not for censorship.

I wouldn't be surprised if some day, they put the Simpsons in the Smithsonian. It's become part of our culture, those characters.

I'm a character actor so I've jumped around to all kinds of things.

I'm in the wrong racket if I didn't want a public life.

I've loved it, but I have a wife and two children.

I've spent the better part of the last twenty-five years doing a lot of traveling.

If you're going to believe in a God, then you also have to equally believe that there's a flip side to this.

That's why I really don't play cards or gamble. Because I'd crack.

There are a lot of people who will come to me for advice or whatever.

There's now a Fat Tony doll, which cracks me up. But you feel honored that they asked you to do a voice.

They put me in the drama class, and that's the path I've taken.

You know the way I play golf, it's a good I do these things for charities.

You talk to the real cops and they say ninety percent of it is paperwork.

But what I will do is I'll acknowledge it and if it can be of any help the fact that I do acknowledge it then maybe other people will benefit from it because I do have somewhat of a public forum being in the line of work I am.