Top 45 Jeffrey Tambor Quotes

I am the Internet guy. But the reason the ‘Onion News Empire’ was such an easy decision to make is I so trust that side of the fence now.

Usually when you act, you know where you’re going, where the point is.

And I’d watch George C. Scott from backstage. He was one of my mentors.

I learned the biggest lesson just watching Ed McMahon, watching him watch Mr. Carson’s monologue.

You want to feel, ‘I know that character.’

I almost should have a shirt made: ‘Jill Soloway has changed my life…’ Not only changed my life with the opportunity to play Maura, but the opportunity and the responsibility of playing Maura.

I loved the gentlemanly way they treated each other. It was unlike anything I was used to. I started helping them strike the set and, at 11, began taking acting classes privately.

George Saunders’s ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ is a hands-down masterpiece – the subject of Abraham Lincoln and the genius of this author is a perfect union.

That’s just me and my own body issues – I think I’m fat and bald and old and ugly.

I think shows being sent out this way – pressing a button and 10 episodes can go out to the U.S.A., and the U.K. and Germany, it’s very cool.

I think I have femininity, I have masculinity, but I get to use all of Jeffrey, and that’s very powerful. And this is what I always thought when I went down in my little basement in San Francisco, where I grew up, and daydreamed about being an actor: It felt like this. This is what it felt like.

Families are families are families are families.

When I did the pilot, Mort was very real to me. When I got through with the ten weeks, Maura is even more real to me.

When I was growing up, there was a character on TV; there was a character stereotype: it was personified by Mel on ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show.’

I did not know that you had to learn makeup. I just thought you went, ‘Oh, I’m gonna put on some makeup.’

My education was doing good plays and also stinkers. When you do a stinker, you learn how to act. I like having to audition. It’s nice to do rehearsals. But it’s with an audience that you get to love it!

I can’t say enough about the guts and the talents of Amazon. They’re so agile, they’re so nimble; they picked us up two weeks after we premiered, and their whole attitude is, ‘Go, go, go, go,’ so I’m very, very impressed.

In Yiddish, we say, ‘Nisht ahin un nisht aher.’ It’s neither here, it’s neither there. I get more nerves than on anything I do when I’m doing multi-camera. But single-camera, I love very much.

I do remember going shopping with my mother; I think the name of the store was Ruth Atkins. I don’t know why I can remember that. It’s probably because it’s not the name.

I think everyone needs to know that I steal biscotti on Delta Airlines. People need to know that.

You see kids walking to the bus, and they’re watching product on their phones. I’m positive that my grandkids and their grandkids are going to put on a pair of glasses and watch something.

There was one television in the living room, and we all sat around on Sundays and watched Ed Sullivan.

The honor of being able to play Maura is transformative. I’m 70 years old. I should be in a reading room, reading Dickens or something.

I was with Robert Preston in ‘Sly Fox.’

I can only speak for me… but in my life, I find that, in sobriety, I feel much more, and I have much more depth. I also feel – not to segue, but as being a parent of five kids, I can bring much more to my acting, and so I’m all about anything that gives you more feeling and more depth.

I would daydream about what it would be like to be an actor. I would even do talk shows where I interviewed myself.

What’s interesting about playing Maura is that I get to use more of Jeffrey that I’ve ever used in any role, and I think that’s the remarkable part about it and truly the most surprising part about doing this role.

I give a speech at some colleges and corporations called ‘Performing Your Life: An Evening with Jeffrey Tambor.’ I get asked a lot of questions, and people say, ‘Your stories are wonderful. You should write a book.’

I grew up in San Fransisco in a very liberal community. My environment was very, very open and very liberal.

Love New York Presbyterian. I will do anything for them.

The Tambors were conservative Jews, and we attended Temple Beth Shalom at 14th Avenue and Clement Street in San Francisco. We were the only Jewish family for miles. To me, being Jewish meant ‘otherness.’

I’m really aging myself, but I grew up with ‘Playhouse 90’ and the plays on the air – 90 minute plays.

I think Maura’is funnier than I am, wittier than I am, more intelligent than I am, and I think she’s just floating me at this point.

When I was young kid, I used to watch Jack Benny, and I thought the minimal aspect of what he did was revelatory. I loved Jack Benny.

I had a theater that was right across the street from me, and I would just go there after school and just hang out and watch… and everything seemed calmer there and nicer there and warmer there.

I think most of my heroes are not the traditional types. A guy I was fascinated with was Buster Keaton. I just love what he did. I love that mug.

The first time I met Garry Shandling was my audition for ‘The Larry Sanders Show,’ with Garry and his casting director Francine Maisler. I can recall every minute of it. He was gracious and kind, and he read with me. He was terrific.

There’s a wonderful adage in acting that you’re stuck with the character, but the character is also stuck with you.

I’m interested in people’s stories, so I decided to tell part of mine.

I lost my moorings. But you know the great thing about acting? It’s all part of the gig. You get to put it in your work.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is part of our constitutional rights and it belongs to everybody.

To you people out there, you producers and you network owners and you agents and you creative sparks, please give transgender talent a chance. Give them auditions. Give them their story. Do that.

I came to New York late; I was already past 30.

Lying and art are very allied. But after you lie, you get to the truth.

Some people have a mandate that you can’t change.