From Dennis Quaid interview 2002:
Dennis Quaid is grateful Russell Crowe had an affair with Meg Ryan. "I think he was a bit surprised when I thanked him," says Dennis. "Looking back over the past two years I think Russell did Meg and I a big favour. I felt hurt and humiliated, of course, when Meg left me for Russell, but we hadn't been getting along for quite some time. He forced us to face up to something, because we were clinging on to a dead relationship."
"We had already grown apart. We were bored with each other. Before Crowe came on the scene we knew our marriage wasn't going to last."
Quaid admitted the affair was a blow to his ego.
"No man likes to see his wife run off with another man," he said. "But I now have a whole new perspective on what happened."
Dennis also insisted that he is genuinely sorry her six-month romance with tough guy Crowe didn't work out.
Talking to America's Star magazine he said: "Great things have happened since then. Meg has her freedom, I have my freedom and we've become good friends again.
He said he had been given time to re-evaluate his life. "I've become a new man in many ways. Meg has become a new woman. I think we're both better human beings now than we were before. So I have no animosity toward Crowe. I have no animosity toward Meg, either.
"When Meg broke up with Crowe I never said, 'I told you so'. I got no enjoyment from her pain. I want Meg to find the right person to light up her life."
He even credits the break-up of their 13-year marriage with leading him to a new-found spirituality.
Quaid has visited shrines in India and has studied the Bible and the Koran.
He said: "I've found true happiness and inner peace. None of this would have happened if Meg hadn't left me."