After a year or so I really thought I was Howard Hughes. Here I was at eighteen years old, getting all these checks.
Everybody in the world knew I was before I knew who I was.
Family is not an important thing, it's everything.
I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business.
I can get sad, I can get frustrated, I can get scared, but I never get depressed - because there's joy in my life.
I didn't want o do metal work and get my hands all nicked up and be around guys. So I took drama because there were a lot of girls.
I don't want people to kick my ass, I just want to get to a point where they can't kick it.
I got sick of turning on the TV and seeing my face.
I had all the usual ambition growing up. I wanted to be a writer, a musician, a hockey player. I wanted to do something that wasn't nine to five. Acting was the first thing I tried that clicked.
I love the irony. I'm perceived as being really young and yet I have the clinical condition of an old man.
I worked very hard on those movies but there was some creative connection that wasn't being made.
I wouldn't have wanted to miss the opportunity to make those three films that didn't do well. They were really important to me, and the things I learned doing them were important to me.
I'm also very proud to be a part of a trilogy of films that, if they do nothing else, allow people to check their problems at the door, sit down and have a good time.
I'm going to marry a Jewish woman because I like the idea of getting up Sunday morning and going to the deli.
I'm kind of private and I keep things inside a lot, but it's been so wonderful to realize that people care about you in a very deep way and that there is some bond between an actor and his audience. I don't even know how to describe that feeling.
I'm managing a physical situation. It taught me great discipline and an awareness of what I can expect from myself.
If I were overweight because I ate too much, I would have far more of a complex. I would know if I just stopped eating and showed a little discipline I would be thin. But there's not a hell of a lot I can do about being short. You just gotta run with it.
In my 50s I'll be dancing at my children's weddings.
Medical science has proven time and again that when the resources are provided, great progress in the treatment, cure, and prevention of disease can occur.
My son will have a fairly stable future. Not one where the schoolyard talk is whose father grossed $8 million on his last picture.
Nobody would choose to have a disease visited upon them. Still, Parkinson's forced me to make a fundamental life decision: adopt a siege mentality - or embark upon a life journey.
One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered.
Pain is temporary, film is forever.
The laughs mean more to me than the adoration. If two girls walk up to me and one says 'you're cute', I'll say thank you, but I appreciate it much more when the other one says 'you make me laugh so much'.
The oldest form of theater is the dinner table. It's got five or six people, new show every night, same players. Good ensemble; the people have worked together a lot.
The only thing worse than an opportunity you don't deserve is blowing an opportunity.
Tracy is more a help to me than I am to her.
What other people think about me is not my business.
You know what I want? The answer is, I truly don't know what I want. I don't want to do a television series. I want to do dramas as well as comedies, but I have no idea what kind or in what order. Just give me the chance at them.
You've probably read in People that I'm a nice guy - but when the doctor first told me I had Parkinson's, I wanted to kill him.
Zoos are becoming facsimiles - or perhaps caricatures - of how animals once were in their natural habitat. If the right policies toward nature were pursued, we would need no zoos at all.
Michael claims his father resembles Jackie Gleason, of The Honeymooners.
Michael's career on Family Ties earned him three Emmy awards, and a Golden Globe.
Since its founding in 2000, The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research has raised about $14 million annually, whether directly, or through partnerships.
Family Ties never discloses what the P stands for in Alex P. Keaton.
Michael wrote a pilot episode for a sitcom Hench at Home, which never aired.
Michael had forgotten how to ride a skateboard in the five years between filming Back to the Future and Back to the Future 2 and had to relearn the skill.
When he moved to the US, he had to sell his couch section by section to get some money before he got the role of Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties.
One of Michael's favorite actors is Michael Douglas, and he loves the Irish band The Hothouse Flowers.
Michael received his Hollywood Walk Of Fame Star on December 16th 2002.
Michael is a vegetarian.
Michael quit high school at age 15.
Michael's height is 5'5.
Michael's middle name is Andrew. He changed his middle initial to "J" to avoid headlines like "Michael's A. Fox!"
In April 2002, Michael released a memoire called "Lucky Man." An excerpt can be found at the website of his foundation.
In January 2000, Michael announced he was leaving Spin City because of Parkinson's Disease.
Michael and Tracy have four children: Sam Michael (b.1989) Schuyler Frances and Aquinnah Kathleen (twins b. 1995) and Esme Annabelle (b. 2001).
Michael has been married to actress Tracy Pollan since July 16, 1988.
You can share a link to this page with your friend!