The information itself is interesting enough if you know it, but the philosophical, moral, and ethical implications of these discoveries is fascinating, and I wanted to put it into a book somehow and try to weave it into a comedy story. But it’s not as heavy as it sounds. You don't have to be a genius to pick up these books and read them.

You bet I did. They weren't too damn happy with this. This is a laborious process, writing books. I applaud anyone who can do it. I don't know how this cat John Grisham does it, or even Stephen King.

I hope I'm on the verge of a discovery. I'm really fantasizing about making a connection, where if I could put several experiences together I might have a new view of things. I feel like I'm just on the verge of discovering what I'm looking for. It might be penning a sci-fi book or a sci-fi screenplay.

I'm a pretty solid Christian. But even as an altar boy, I was always asking the bigger questions—you know: if God is, in fact, good, what is all this death I see? And if God is gentle, what is all this suffering I see? I've found some of the answers in Eastern religion. It explained my Christianity to me. Good and evil are the same thing. You can't have one without the other. It’s the balance, it’s the temperance of things.

Yes it is!

No. Look, we fight about this all the time on the set. I call it D.A.A.P.—dumb as a post. Sometimes they forget that Tim Taylor has shown some intelligence. My retort is—and I play it like this—I'm never sure if Tim isn't aware that he’s being stupid. So, I've tried to give some dignity to the character. But the book is by no means intended to prove to people that I read books.

It is a faulty assumption. I could get the roles, but it’s a big risk to the studio. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Someone once said, "You made a contract with America to grunt and talk about cars and tools, and if people don't see that in a movie they'll think they got shortchanged." I started believing that, because it sounded true. Then, the producer and director of Jungle2Jungle saw me do a couple of scenes with Lolita Davidovitch where I had to get very sad, and he said, “You sold it. I totally forgot that you were Tim Allen for a minute." I sold it well.

My feelings are sadness. We're halfway through our sixth season. Next year would be it. I'd miss these people terribly. I'm in love with this show, I love going to work, I love being around Pat [Richardson, who plays his wife] and the boys and Earl [Hindman, the next-door neighbor] and Richard [Karn, his sidekick Al] and the director. We're all really happy.

How fine an actor she is. She’s working under very hard conditions. She’s working with a guy who grunts. She steps up magnificently. She was very gracious. Home Improvement was going to be two stars in a lovely adult romance. It turned out to be this show about the ape-man who blows up shit. She never resented it because she thought it was designed that way, but I told her no, I was never initially paid to be the star. It just happened. It was an organic thing and she understood.

One of the funnier men you'll ever meet. One of the best comedy thinkers. He comes up with so much material for his character. He’s a courageous guy. He’s stuck in this character—there’s only so many things Al can do, and he’s nothing like Richard.

Steve Allen, of all people, came up to me after our one hundredth show and we had a little party. And he said the show shows some real talent, and that it’s refreshing to see. He was likening it to the old days of television. Coming from him that meant a lot to me.

It’s been used in a variety of different ways. It’s never behind you, let me give you that. It’s like a handicap. Everybody brings it up. It never goes away. I thought I'd covered it, but it comes up every interview. I think it’s fascinating to people. But it’s hard to control the flood. I only mentioned it to protect ABC and Disney. The show took off, and so I said, "By the way, this is going to come up. It was twenty years ago and sometimes I forget about it." I didn't want it to become a Clinton pot thing. Everyone else said, "Oh my God, what a glorious guy this is to have [been honest about his past]." Look, I'm a fucking dick to have gotten involved with this. I'm an ex-convict. I could have been murdered or knifed in there. I wasn't a big user, and that helped. And that wasn't the reason I sold it. I sold it because I was a greedy little shit.

It’s none of my business, but if it was, I would have done it a long time ago. I think it would be an interesting show to have a lesbian as a main character who is funny. Let the viewer in on it, but have her play in her world like she’s not. Let her have to fool people. It would be illuminating to show people how ridiculous it is to have to hide your sexuality and how society forces people to be uncomfortable letting it out. There’s so much room for comedy there I would have let it out a long time ago.

God… my daughter’s report card. They just said the sweetest things about my daughter. Everything she did right. I just beamed. I got this shit-eating grin on my face and looked in the mirror and said, “You look like a dork, you’re so goddamned proud of your daughter.” She’s very protective of me. We go out and she says, “I'm with my dad today, not Tim Allen.” And we’ll be at McDonald’s and, out of nowhere, paparazzi, and I get kind of pissy. I say, “Take pictures of me, fellas, but not my daughter. She’s not a celebrity.”

I'm having a lot of fun with it. Today, I happened to hook up in New York with an old friend of mine, and I brought a writer with me because I’m rewriting a script for Home Improvement. So I happen to have an entourage. It looks like an entourage. And everybody wanted to go with me to see Howard Stern. So, we all had on these dark coats and—it isn’t as it appears—but I’m playing it to the hilt. We were laughing so hard at ABC, I was screaming, “You get [ABC President] Bob Igar down here right now!” and really playing it up. It was a laugh riot, but then I ran out of gas and just wanted to go get something to eat and it’s a major goddamned undertaking. And invariably you piss somebody off because it’s, "I don’t want to interrupt your meal”; and the devil on my shoulder says, “But you’re just about to, aren’t you?” Right in the middle of a bite: “Can you sign these four napkins?” She doesn’t have a pen. “Don’t you have a pen?” Now she’s pissed because she thinks I have a pen and that I'm hiding it. She gets all huffy because I don’t have a pen to sign her shit. I finally get a pen from the table behind me and now they want me to sign shit. Now my beans are cold. I don’t want to go back to the hotel room and hide, so fame has its drawbacks. I'll put it that way.