David Pierce Quotations

Let's see... how old am I? I'm definitely in my 50s... and I've certainly always been in my 50s. I could be older than that... but I'm not willing to face that.

Now people just congratulate me on my marriage, it's wonderful,

I am, by nature, a fairly shy person, and one of the things I had to learn was, when you're on a popular show and people feel they know you, what used to pass for shyness can be perceived as rude. I do feel more vulnerable, but people are always nice. Nobody ever comes up and throws food on me and says the show is crap.

Kelsey plays the piano, and he's also a tremendous singer. I'm classically trained, and he's more of a jazz improvisatory pianist. So, we don't usually sit down and play together.

Kelsey Grammer is wickedly funny. He's like an 8-year-old child. He's always doing pranks, and we have a great time.

I was closing up my parents' house this summer, and found a film of my dad throwing a football with me in the front yard. It was like Niles as an 8-year-old-every time he threw it, I'd drop it or it would hit me in the head.

I was waiting in line to go into the cafeteria, and I told a joke to someone and realized that it was funnier if I didn't laugh when I told the joke. I actually had to bite my cheeks to keep from laughing. That's when I first discovered for myself the value of deadpan.

I think opera is probably the exact same thing as boxing-a bunch of big, strangely dressed people making strange noises for a really long time.

We could have a serious epidemic on our hands. Alzheimer's is a ticking time bomb in the heads of people in my generation. We must defuse it before it detonates and destroys our minds. Time is running out.

There have been many exciting new discoveries in Alzheimer research at NIH-funded facilities. But this progress cannot continue unless there is a strong and sustained flow of resources for research. I urge Congress to boost federal funds for Alzheimer's research to $1 billion.

Both my parents had a strong influence on my sense of humor and my ending up in this profession. They both had terrific and very different senses of humor. Mom had a very dry, deadpan sense of humor. My Dad has a very wet, anything-goes kind of humor. He tends toward the wild and crazy.

I've been kick-boxing for exercise. And now if I turn on boxing on the television by accident, I watch it, and I love it. Whereas a year ago, I thought it was the stupidest thing I had even seen-that you would voluntarily watch these people beat the crap out of each other and think, oh, that's entertainment.

So much of good comedy is timing and being able to hear the music of a line and the rhythm of a joke. I think that's why a lot of the best comedians have some sort of musical instincts. That's one reason why Kelsey and I work so well together. He's also a musician.

August was horse-racing time. The only time we'd ever go to the track is sometimes in the morning, when the horses would be working out.

There's a very strange transference that happens in playing brothers. We just respond to each other in a very deep way.

It's very humbling. As you're sitting there, watching, and the character does some wonderful thing, you think, 'Oh that was good.' But it wasn't me. It was them. They did that. It is definitely being a piece of a huge puzzle.

I had always acted for fun, and I wanted to do that. I really didn't have the talent. I loved to play, but that's a whole different level.

In sitcom school they tell you how great it is to have a long-running show, but they don't tell you how hard it is to say goodbye.

I had done voiceover for a Simpson's episode, and I also did some for the HBO show Puss N Boots that was set in Hawaii.

By the time the disease was through with him, he no longer knew how to move a chess piece or to put together a simple child's model boat,

I did a big movie this summer, during my hiatus. That's really the time when I can do anything where I have a large part. That was Down With Love, an homage to the Rock Hudson-Doris Day films.

I consciously or subconsciously draw on whatever attributes are most appropriate to the character and just heighten them.

I do know that if you're able to laugh in a situation, it means you have perspective on the situation... that you're not swallowed up by it. On some level, you can keep your head above water enough to see the humor in something. Being able to have a sense of humor in dark times is an indication that you can make it.

The greatest honor the Academy has ever given me,

The curse of being on Frasier is the challenge of finding writing that's that good in any other medium. I've been looking at scripts for two years.