Quotes By Christopher Meloni

If you take life at face value, it loses its luster pretty quickly. If you go after it, you get more out of it.

My mother raised three children on her own and my dad was a doctor working 16 hours a day.

I think to be a successful comic, you have to be exceptionally smart and exceptionally perceptive.

I don't get called very often to play innocents.

It's just nice to work hard and be rewarded, which is having lots of people watch. And the icing on the cake is for me is to be able to walk around with pride, feeling that the product you put out is worthy of being watched. But honestly, it's not a big deal. I don't put too much stock in fame or celebrity anyway. I don't put it in the 'important' box.

We went online to surrogacy agencies. We interviewed lots of people - and I have to say, with all due respect, some of them were freaks. I was very leery of the process the whole way through.

De Niro was a hero of mine. And Sean Penn. But I've realized I can't operate at that level of intensity. That's okay for movies. On TV, when you live with horror day in and day out, you have to protect yourself.

I'm just an actor, but if the extra part of it is that I'm helping people or people are being helped by the virtue of what we're doing, then that's just a really nice added extra.

I had great faith in Irish actors, that they'd be hip to the whole theatre thing, and they are. I had no illusions of coming over here as some kind of big shot. It's been a learning experience for me too.

I still have a dream of one day - I would love to hire a semi-retired contractor and just build a house - him and I building a house for me. I would truly love to do that.

I take this art very seriously and passionately. I love what I do. You can't help but grow. That's not to say you don't make mistakes or make bad choices, but that's part of the art. Painters paint bad paintings.

I never find sincerity offensive... so, be sincere.

How that works is our first season was the year we had a threatened writers' strike, so what we did was that instead of doing 22 episodes, we did 30. We put 10 in the bank.

The reason why I hate working in theatre is the tedium of memorisation. But once that is done, then you feast on this never-ending meal. If you play it correctly, every night is fraught with very high stakes that are very difficult to find in everyday life.

It is a weird feeling to have people go, "Hey Chris" like they know me. But, number one, 99 percent of my experiences have been really cool. People couldn't be nicer and more positive.

I have worried about getting pigeon-holed, but now I think I've done enough weird, offbeat stuff not to be. And I also know that I do things for the right reasons: I've made my money, so I don't have to say yes to anything.

The surprising thing about fatherhood was finding my inner mush. Now I want to share it with the world.

This is a dream come true. To wake up in a place that I own and go to work in New York City as an actor - I feel like Mary Tyler Moore throwing her friggin' hat in the air.

I'm so busy these days. I forget everything but my lines.

I'm always learning from experiences because each one is different and there are different players involved in the project at the time with their own way of doing things.

My first thought when I came here was that I understood why there are so many great Irish writers - because there is something mystical in the air. There's always this cloudy, moody sky and it's challenging.

You can be childlike without being childish. A child always wants to have fun. Ask yourself, "Am I having fun?"

I think we present extreme aspects of human behavior and hopefully get at times, messages across or bring issues to the table or as we so often say, shed light into the dark crevices of human nature.

I'd have to say Bali's my favorite place that I've visited.

Look, I hate to sound like Pollyanna, but I literally can't wait to get to work in the morning. I've got steady jobs, I've got my health, and I'm here in the greatest city in the world. I'd be a pig not to be grateful.

If you try hard enough, you can bend the spoon; you can shift reality.

My wife has brought great beauty into my life. And my daughter has brought me nothing but joy. Those qualities were greatly lacking.

I'd like to go away for six months and learn to kiteboard and windsurf. I love pinochle, I love chess and I love windsurfing.

TV's hard work. I don't know how the hell Angela Lansbury survived doing 'Murder, She Wrote' all those years. And sure, everyone wants to be Bruce Willis or George Clooney - they want to be in film for the range of characters you get to play.

I'm a nudist at heart.