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Acting Quotes

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Acting Quotes

“If we think that we can secure our country by just talking tough without acting tough and smart, then we will misunderstand this moment and miss its opportunities. If we think that we can use the same partisan playbook where we just challenge our opponent's patriotism to win an election, then the American people will lose. The times are too serious for this kind of politics.”

“Most of the people dishing out judgment have no working experience of the theatre, have not written a professional play, a sketch, or even a joke; have never worked in a theatre, taken an acting class, or published any extended piece of work. They are creative virgins; everything they know about theatre is book-learned and second-hand.”

“All of the great leaders down through history have told us we become what we think about. In fact, they have been in complete and unanimous agreement on this point while they disagree on almost every other point. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people rarely think, they simply accept what they see or hear. The next time someone gives you a suggestion, rather than simply accepting and acting on the suggestion - THINK - exercise your reasoning factor. Ask yourself if the suggestion will improve the quality of your life.”

“Historically, labor unions arose when people had gotten a taste of a different lifestyle and were willing to pay a lot more for their basic livelihood and had gotten into a fix they couldn't get out of - because they had accepted the unacceptable to begin with. Accepting something you have to form a labor union to fight after the fact only tells me that people were acting against their own best (or even good) interests for a long time. I don't see any rational, coherent explanation for this sort of behavior in humans, but it's all over the place.”

“There are crimes which no one would commit as an individual which he willingly and bravely commits when acting in the name of his society, because he has been (too easily) convinced that evil is entirely different when it is done 'for the common good.'...one might point to the way in which racial hatreds and even persecution are admitted by people who consider themselves, and perhaps in some sense are, kind, tolerant, civilized and even humane.”

“I believe I've spent my life expecting people to behave in a certain way. I believe that when they didn't behave according to my expectations, I became angry, sad, confused and occasionally fearful. I believe these expectations are the reason I've been angry, sad, confused and occasionally fearful more than I care to admit. As a result, I now believe my expectations are the real problem. I believe that everyone has this very same problem, and they ought to start acting accordingly.”

“I always revered people that I thought had an idea and proceeded through with it. I guess I've been that way since the day I called my father and told him I was going to study acting and maybe try to see if I could do well with that, and he told me: "Don't do that. You don't want to do that, that's just dream stuff. Get a legitimate job and move forward."”

“To me, acting is a matter of absolute concentration. You can laugh and giggle with your friends up to the minute the director says, "Action!" Then you snap your mind into shape and into the character that you're playing and relate to the people that you're acting with and forget everybody else that you've been joking with.”

“I think of myself more as an actress. I do my music because I'm very passionate about my music. I love making music. I love inspiring people. I love making great songs that are just really fun. But that's all it usually is for me. I love touring and singing great songs. I don't think I'll ever win a Grammy one day, and I'm totally fine with that. I do work really hard when it comes to acting and I want to do that for a long time.”

“I guess if there's one thing that might surprise people about me, it's that I'm very obedient. I'm kind of like a dog. I look at acting as kind of a service industry. You're there to serve the writer and the director. I don't really look at it as an act of self-expression, like I'm going to say what's on my mind.”

“[T]he crucial question is not, as so many believe, whether property rights should be private or governmental, but rather whether the necessarily 'private' owners are legitimate owners or criminals. For ultimately, there is no entity called 'government'; there are only people forming themselves into groups called 'governments' and acting in a 'governmental' manner. All property is therefore always 'private'; the only and critical question is whether it should reside in the hands of criminals or of the proper and legitimate owners.”

“It is very singular how the fact of a man's death often seems to give people a truer idea of his character, whether for good or evil, than they have ever possessed while he was living and acting among them.”

“There is one way by which a strolling player may be ever secure of success; that is, in our theatrical way of expressing it, to make a great deal of the character. To speak and act as in common life is not playing, nor is it what people come to see; natural speaking, like sweet wine, runs glibly over the palate and scarcely leaves any taste behind it; but being high in a part resembles vinegar, which grates upon the taste, and one feels it while he is drinking.”

“Quotes are like prompts. A way of searching, connecting the dots. Other people's thinking has always - both positively and negatively - jumpstarted my thinking. Quotes are also a way of acting out not just a text, and not just thinking, but the making of a text. The construction of thinking. The quotes are part of those constructions and reflections. Thinking through quotes, which to say scouring a range of texts for insight, is one way to outline the process of thinking/feeling through a subject.”

“There are novels that end well, but in between there are human beings acting like human beings. And human beings are not perfect. All of the motives a human being may have, which are mixed, that's the novelists' materials. That's where they have to go. And a lot of that just isn't pretty. We like to think of ourselves as really, really good people. But look in the mirror. Really look. Look at your own mixed motives. And then multiply that.”

“In 22 years of acting, I've only done two movies where I, personally, kill people. The Coens called me the Spanish Ballerina on (the No Country For Old Men) set, because every time I had the gun, when they called cut, I'd give it back and say, 'Take this s**t out of my hands!' There were laughing, like they couldn't believe I was supposed to be the villain.”