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"I didn't want to play a lawyer. I didn't want to play a doctor. I didn't want to play a single dad. I wanted to do something I felt I could learn from, something that would be a challenge and something that would not dry up."
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"When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry."

"My brother Jim and I saw our father go into the jails and pray with the inmates Sunday after Sunday. He prayed with both blacks and whites. If we ever repeated any slurs we heard on the playground, he'd tell us very softly, "I don't want to hear those words.""

"My father was a minister, so I was a P.K., a preacher's kid."

"I could, I think, quite easily have gone to Oxford. I got four good A levels, but my father's income was such that I wouldn't have got a grant, and he wouldn't let me go to university, and that was the end of it."
Explore more quotes by William Petersen

"We knew all along we were making a good show, so its success was not a surprise to me. What has surprised me is the magnitude of this show's success. More people see me now in one episode than saw me in 20 years of movies and theater!"

"If I stayed a football player, my career would have been over 20 years ago. As it is, my knees are shot. I found I got the same good feeling in acting that I had in sports, but I found I could have a more profound impact on people."

"When we get involved in the ratings, then we're doing the network's job. We need to focus on our work."

"Now I'm seen by more people in one episode than I was in 20 years of theatre and movies. It's gratifying to have an impact on 25 million people a night, but I can say goodbye to my lunch-pail life as a working actor. I'm scared I might be a celebrity."

"Grissom is a character who doesn't really want people poking around in his life. He likes to poke around in his work."

"Corporate Hollywood thinks I'm a geek to go back and do theater. They don't understand why I don't want to be a movie star, why I'm not pursuing Mel Gibson's roles."

"Theater in Chicago will always be my first love. It started careers for me and about 50 of my friends. We all love coming back. As soon as the TV show is over, I'll be back in Chicago, doing live theater."

"I was horrible at science and math. I couldn't pass a test to save my life! I'm surprised that it didn't take me until I was 20 to graduate. That's why my role is so cool - Grissom is the complete opposite of me."

"I want to live and work in Chicago for the rest of my life. You know when you were growing up and you wanted to become president? What I want now is to be mayor of this damned town in ten years."

"One of the things I love about theater, one of the reasons I'll never give it up, is that it's fifty percent the audience's responsibility."
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