Quotes from Christopher Meloni

But when you're a working actor - and that's what you keep saying in your head, how blessed you are to have a job - and you are working with heavyweights, working with the best guys in TV, it's pretty cool. Exhausting, but cool.

I love my lifestyle now, but at the end of nine months, you're toast. You are toast. It's like running a marathon. You can't think while you're doing it. Especially when different directors come in who are not part of the posse, the circle.

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

I love to act. I need to act. It's the big itch I need to scratch.

I've got the best of all worlds. It's every actor's dream to wake up in New York City and go to an acting job rather than to a restaurant to wash dirty dishes. And I live so close to the studios that I ride my bike to work.

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.

Crime is one of the leads of the show. If there's ever anything that deals with a character's personal life, you don't have to worry about it getting too crazy. People don't have to worry about character arcs. Each episode is a self-contained unit.

I took acting classes in college, and once I graduated, I decided to give acting a shot when I couldn't really think of anything else to do. It took me a couple of years to get an agent, and my first big break was The Fanelli Boys, which was a sitcom on NBC. Then I did a few television movies.

But I came from a conservative Republican background.

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.

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.

You couldn't pay me enough to be a law enforcement officer. Their job is a tough job. You have to solve people's problems, you have to baby-sit people, you have to always be doing this cat-and-mouse game with the bad guys. My respect for them is immense.

I love feeling the crispness of fall and the sensuality of spring.

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

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

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

On the secret to a lasting marrige: One of you has to be sane, and the other one is only allowed to be insanne occasionally. We take turnes on who gets to be wich person

I love my children beyond all reason. They're my joy, even when they're wild with kid energy.

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

I like intellectual journeys.

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

Hate is a draining bottomless pit from whence nothing good or of any value can come. Try to eat a balanced diet. Guys only want one thing.