Mike Vogel quotes:

When my wife and I met, I couldn't talk to her - and my defense mechanism is sarcasm. I belittle someone with verbal pokes and prods. I did it to her out of complete awe. When friends introduced us, I said 'Hi' - and turned my back. Later, I called my mom and best friend and said, 'I think I just met my wife.'

I have many friends in Special Forces, and the amazing thing about these guys is how quickly they can read someone.

My wife is a terrific Southern cook. My favorite of all the great things she cooks is 'trash potatoes.' That's mashed potatoes with sour cream, bacon, cheddar cheese, and horseradish. It's a total gut bomb.

The Dome is a metaphor that could mean anything - it could be nuclear fallout, terrorists - I've always been fascinated with stories where people's roles are flipped on their heads, be it the Wall Street guy, the techno guy, etc. All of those things are only successful when there are people and money around.

On paper, actors are the dumbest group of individuals essentially out there. Most of us have not gone to college. However, we never stop learning. Because of what we do, we're constantly researching, constantly learning.

When I graduated from high school, I weighed 125 pounds because of wrestling. Suddenly, I realized I could eat whatever I wanted - plus, creatine was new at the time. I went from 125 to 175 pounds, working out like crazy. I was yoked. But I wasn't drinking enough fluids and ended up with a kidney stone - and 3 weeks of pure hell.

My whole life, I wanted to be a fighter pilot; it's what I wanted to do. I set up all of my classes for it, but I got lazy my senior year in high school and didn't get my paperwork in.

I have such an eclectic taste in music. Come to a backyard BBQ at my house, and I will run the gamut from Skynyrd to Sinatra to '90s grunge, rap, R&B, and classic rock. I have issues. If I had to pick one, I love this country artist named Craig Morgan. His music and his songs are so relatable and tell such vivid stories.

I come home more exhausted after a day of emotional work on set than I've ever had in any sporting event I've played or anything. It's draining. But it's also part of the fun.

Music is just a huge part of my life. It affects moods. I've always found it insane how you can hear one song, and it takes you back to a specific, specific moment in your life, and you remember it vividly like it was yesterday.

I grew up a plumber's son in Philadelphia.

The great thing about sci-fi is that the fans and the audience are unlike any other genre out there. They are constantly looking for great content and good stuff. They don't care where it comes from, they'll latch onto it.

Film is very much about sitting around and talking about ideas, and that's the stuff that I love, but I haven't experienced that yet in the television that I've done so far. It makes me long for movies again because, creatively, I always have a much more fulfilling experience there.

For me, whatever the outcome, it's nice to sit back to something and say, "Man, I'm really proud of that. I'm real proud of the experience that I had, I'm proud to be a part of something so iconic whether anyone watches it or not. They can't take away the experience that I had.

I found that inevitably you cannot fit everything that is in that book into what is inevitably going to go on screen.

Normally I can't watch playback. I can't watch anything because I know that it's so rough and there's going to be effects that are added, there's going to be sound effects, there's going to be so much stuff that happens between this point and that finished product that it just ruins the illusion for me.

Television moves so fast. A series moves at such a rapid pace and things are changing, episode to episode, where you're going, "Wait, why am I doing this? This last episode, you told me I was doing this." You're shooting at a moving target.

When you choose a show you really don't know where it's going to go. Sometimes things let you down and sometimes things just surprise you and fulfill you way more than you thought.