Quotes from Gary Sinise

Careers, like rockets, don't always take off on time. The trick is to always keep the engine running.

Yeah, I volunteered to support the troops, and get out there and show them that we care about them.

I think you're lucky if you discover what you really love at a young age. College wasn't something I was going to do. I wanted to keep acting, and I didn't want to go to New York or California and pound the pavement.

Careers, like rockets, don't always take off on schedule. The key is to keep working the engines.

How can I make a difference in restoring what's been lost? How can I help make sure our veterans are never treated that way again?

When I thought about that, I remembered something I have heard in church. We each have a purpose in life, and if we're serving God, following him, living out God's calling and purposes for our life, then we can have faith that God is leading us, and even difficult times can turn out all right. God can cause all things to work together for good.

While we can never do enough to show gratitude to our nation's defenders, veterans, first responders, and the families that serve alongside them, we can always do a little more.

One of my foundation's main initiatives is to build smart homes for severely wounded veterans. We provide these houses and the land they're built on at no cost to the vets, completely mortgage free.

There's a message I want to deliver in this book: I love my country and I'm grateful to be an American. I know where my freedom comes from, and I do not take for granted the sacrifices of those who provide it. Because of that, I want to do all I can to ensure America's defenders and their families are never forgotten.

I can most certainly say that what happened to our country on September 11 broke my heart and changed me forever. It forced me to rethink everything. What do I really believe? How do I want to raise my kids? What kind of example do I want to set for them? What can I do to give back to this great country I love? How can I use my good fortune to help? It was a turning point and marked the beginning of a new level of service. I found that the more I gave, the more I healed.

Ronald Reagan once said, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, hand handed on for them to do the same.

Steppenwolf and Operation International Children

Well, I've been to Iraq twice now. I was in Baghdad in June and then north of Baghdad in November.

If you're missing three or four limbs, you have special challenges going forward. And the last thing you want is to not be independent in your home.

The chance to play a romantic character who kisses somebody onscreen was one of the elements that made me want to do 'The Stand.' The more you can do, the better, and I've been known as a character actor.

You've got to keep taking certain risks, because my priority is in acting, it's not in movie stardom.

I've worked with a lot of really fine actors, both on stage and on screen. The level of their game lifts me up and brings the level of my game up to theirs. Always. It's like a constant upgrade.

When I think of work, it's mostly about having control over your destiny, as opposed to being at the mercy of what's out there.

There's always the ongoing actor frustration of finding the great role to do next. I don't go to work a lot. I wait as long as I can until the money runs out or a great part comes along.

'The Stand' came out in May of '94 and was seen by 60 million people a night for four nights, and then two months later, 'Forrest Gump' opened. So within a very short time, I went from being depressed about not getting any work to being in two of the most popular shows of the year.

I study to learn, to be an educated person.

I have veterans in my family. But I didn't know anything about DAV, Disabled American Veterans.

I started a theater called Steppenwolf. We've been very supportive of the veterans there.

The University of Southern California has a wonderful social work department, and I was thrilled to find out that they have a whole veterans' initiative program there. They approached me, and I set up a scholarship that would go to a military-oriented person to learn techniques and skills to better help veterans.