Quotes from Denis Leary

Rosemary Rodriguez directed on Rescue Me for us, and I love her. She's fantastic with actresses and she's got a great sense of humor. That was a huge thing for me.

I love to smoke. I smoke seven thousand packs a day!

Jon Stewart is exactly the same guy he's always been, only with money. He knows that the moment he really believes he's important, the funny goes away and he becomes Bill O'Reilly, except shorter and Jewish.

If a character dies, you get to do a big, juicy death scene. But the flip side is you're out of the sequel, which is where the real money is.

First of all, I have to have trucks because I live most of my time on a horse farm, so I've gotta have trucks. It's in the northeast; I've got to have pickup trucks to move snow, number one. Number two, just if I'm driving, I don't have to have an SUV, but I want a big car.

I'm one of the people that when I wake up I have to do what I do. It's not like I want to do it. I kind of have to do it.

My father left Ireland because he did not want to muck horse manure for the rest of his life, and he wanted to come to New York.

The Social Wishlist on Facebook is a great example of everything right about social media.

Some people expect me to be funny all the time, and I'm not necessarily funny all the time.

I would have to commit a crime and have cops chase me. That would be the only way to get me to jog five miles.

I always hated the Grateful Dead. Never even bought a Led Zeppelin album.

I really like 'Batman.' Not the TV show, but the dark 'Batman.'

I fell asleep during 'Year One' twice. And my son, who never falls asleep during a Jack Black movie, also nodded off. That's how bad it was. I was incredibly disappointed.

You can have good writing, but a great actor will make it feel and sound like great writing. You can have great writing, and mediocre actors will make it feel mediocre. Without the actors, you have nothing.

Stand-up comedy and comedy in general is the ultimate form of free speech, because you get to poke holes in all the pretentious bubbles politicians and pundits and popes and pretenders try to float over our heads.

For us as writers, it's really important to have songs we believe in - even before sometimes we shoot a scene. If we have a song that's so perfectly designed for a scene on 'Rescue Me,' we'll play it on loud speakers during the shooting. It helps the cameraman and it helps the director, and it helps the actors know what the feel is.

I think daycare is great for people who have to work two jobs. My problem is with people who are dropping kids off at daycare because they want to go out and spend the day golfing or getting their nails done. You know what I mean? That's not why they invented daycare.

Usually when you watch a film, you're just sort of biting your nails about things you could have done differently.

I guess you get pigeon-holed in Hollywood, but I'm ok with that because I've been able to do a lot. I started in the theater, then I went to stand-up comedy, and then when I went into the movies to do comedy and drama and big movies and small movies.

If you had no enemies, you had no fun.

Technology is changing, so the viewership is getting broken up. My kids watch everything downloaded; they have no idea what the numbers or the names of the channels mean, except 'FX makes the show that I see on my computer.'

I'm really good at laundry, and I have no problem cleaning the kitchen.

You just can't win. Men have very recent land mines in their heads. Women have recorded conversations and photographs in their heads from 15 years ago.

Anybody who's done standup will tell you that there's nothing like it. The show starts at 8:00, the curtain goes up and there's nobody else except you and the audience, and you just perform for them for two hours. Nobody yells, 'Cut!' There are no retakes. That is still the most exciting medium for me, and I love it.