I always wanted to be a great actor.

Do you need the ones you love to let you go before you can leave.

I drove back in the pouring rain, blurry and dazed buy knowing I had a father who cared enough to make sure my stools were soft. What the hell, it was better than nothing.

There are not a lot of places for an actor to explore what it’s like to be a woman in her 60s. There aren’t any films about it and there very few TV series about it.

There’s always been a shortage of roles for three-dimensional women, no matter what age. If you look at the statistics on women in film, be they behind the camera or in front of the camera, and it’s pretty nauseous-making. It always has been.

The bad thing about being with an actor is that the role he’s in stays with him all the time. The good thing about being with an actor – well, I can’t think of any good thing.

The bad thing about being with an actor is that the role he’s in stays with him all the time. The good thing about being with an actor – well, I can’t think of any good thing.

I did comedies for 10 years and I learned a great deal.

I’ve done some good work and some not-good work.

You may be a little older, or a little more neurotic, or a little more closed off. But inside, you’re just the same.

I think the first thing I did was several scenes from Romeo and Juliet.

All of them with wounds that wouldn’t heal because no one acknowledged they were bleeding, and yet each of them needing the other to be near. And that – I realize – is how this story fits into my life. These generations of women, weaving a pattern into a lifelong garment, unconsciously handed down from mother to daughter to granddaughter to me.

I think that’s very sad, that I haven’t allowed my heart to be broken. I have broken a few.

You were magical.” I whispered back, “I was?” Then everything was dark again and I could barely see her at all. “What does that mean?” I asked. “Just that.” Another flash of headlights lit up the front seat and I could see her mouth edging toward a smile, the light bleaching her beautiful face white, then slowly fading to black.

If you have the opportunity to play these characters that are three-dimensional and very deeply rooted in an emotional level, they stay with you. They lived in you anyway, the density of them. It takes a while to realize how they’ve influenced you.

Fear is where the information is.

I didn’t back into being an actor, I was born one.

Western Costume, and the old Universal wardrobe that is huge and they’re getting rid of so much of it now, which is sad

I’m looking for a bunch of new tchotchkes that represent the new part of my life.

What does the Academy Award mean? I don’t think it means much of anything.

You know, people really don’t understand what actors do.

When you’re old, you are more certain of who you are, and that may be a good thing or a bad thing.

What I do know is this: How you care for your child from the time they are born until they’re eighteen is important, but who you are as a person and parent for as long as you live also counts, and counts one hell of a lot.

I’m so vigorous, and I so take it for granted, because I’ve always been a real physical person.

Never, ever, have I felt really accepted in Hollywood.

Never, ever, have I felt really accepted in Hollywood.

I wanted to be Katharine Hepburn-ish – there was a bit of nobility about her.

Most important, my mother was also given the chance to study acting with the brilliant Charles Laughton, eventually becoming a member of his acting company, the Charles Laughton Players, performing Chekhov and Shakespeare in a small theater on Beverly Boulevard, on the outskirts of Hollywood. Not only did she find herself onstage with Mr. Laughton, but she had the amazing good fortune to be directed by him as well. These moments stayed alive in her always.

All of them with wounds that wouldn’t heal because no one acknowledged they were bleeding, and yet each of them needing the other to be near.

As I look back right now, I realize that it was all of those mindless, repetitive tasks I was forced to endure day after day, the getting up and doing every scene the best I could, over and over, that gave me a kind of “miles in the saddle.” They strengthened muscles not located in my body but in my heart – muscles not easy to access and certainly not fun. But easy is overrated and fun is extremely relative.

Why it moves so fast now when it used to move so painfully slow. It has to do with the percentage of your life that each day represents. When you’ve lived 25,915 days, one twenty-four-hour span is a very small part of the whole picture. But when you’ve only got 10,220 days under your belt, each day is a bigger portion of that existence.

You can’t help but feel all the human-rights issues.

There was really a snobbery from people in film – they did not want people who had come from television. It was the poor relation of show business, and especially situation comedy.

There was really a snobbery from people in film – they did not want people who had come from television. It was the poor relation of show business, and especially situation comedy.

How can you change who you are and learn what it takes to get up, over and over, if you can’t allow yourself to feel how much it hurts to be knocked down.

I had found someone to love, to pour my heart into, someone I felt frightened of, and I was seeking to be loved the only way I knew how: by disappearing.

Like a jerk, I went to a nutritionist and I ate the most repulsive, awful things. I didn’t allow myself to eat chocolate cake and french fries and cheeseburgers.

I have never been beautiful in cliche terms.

I came from a real working-class show business family.

I came from a real working-class show business family.

I’m highly emotional, so I’m highly aware of humiliation.

I would take plays and I would cut out all the other dialogue and make long monologues because I felt the other kids weren’t taking it as seriously as I did.

I joined the Actors Studio and began to work with Lee Strasberg, and that changed my work.

But there isn’t any second half of myself waiting to plug in and make me whole. It’s there. I’m already whole.

But there isn’t any second half of myself waiting to plug in and make me whole. It’s there. I’m already whole.

I grew up in a show-business family, but we were working-class show business. There was nothing glamorous about it. You had great things one day and the next day, nothing.

I haven’t had an orthodox career.

I wouldnt mind having my heart broken because it would mean that I had that much feeling connected to somebody. And that would be really great.

I have a tendency to think of myself as the mutt of the litter. I’m not purebred.

I so believe that older women have tremendous value to their families, their community, their country, the world.

People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along.

I never really address myself to any image anybody has of me. That’s like fighting with ghosts.

I was just lucky enough to grow up in a time when they actually had drama departments in schools.

All people want on this earth is to connect with others. Other than eating and sleeping. Human beings need to connect with other human beings. Otherwise, they lose their mind.

To watch how lovingly your children parent their own children is to know profound achievement.

There are some actors who are my contemporaries who I think of as purebreds and I’m not.

I haven’t had an orthodox career, and I’ve wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn’t feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!

Had there not been a Mary Todd, there would not have been an Abraham Lincoln. She found him when he was a young lawyer and really a bumpkin. No one knew of him, but she recognized his brilliance.

You try to get rid of the things that are weighing you down.

I MUST go to what desperately frightens me – the chance of failure.

Quit thinking about your weight and start thinking about your worth and who you are and what you haven’t done yet. What you want to accomplish.

There are parts of me that I feel are beautiful, but they don’t have anything to do with my nose.

Last year I was diagnosed with osteoporosis.

When I was born, the doctor looked at my mother and said, ‘Congratulations, you have an actor

When you have kept yourself isolated, no one relates to you, you have no way of understanding actually who you are.

If I hadn’t fought back, I might have been Gidget forever.

But I was losing so much bone density that I would have been in grave danger. And I mean grave danger. If I had let it go just a few more years I could have broken my hip or spine just picking up my granddaughter.

I really have no ulterior motive in taking on certain roles. I have no larger issue that I really want to show people. I’m an actor, that’s all. I just do what I do.

And I realized that sometimes the greatest triumphs in your life come in on little cat feet and sit on silent haunches and it’s up to you to see it before it moves on.

I mean, the only thing that matters to me is getting to the work – getting to do the work. And I don’t really care where it is: whether it’s on stage or on television or in film.

I don’t want to look old and worn, but what can you do? My real focus is being an actor. I care more about having the opportunity to play roles that I haven’t played than I care if my neck looks like someone’s bedroom curtains.

In reality, people are people. Age does a weird thing to your body on the outside. It makes your face fall and weird things happen all over. But inside, you’re the same person you always were.

I am such a notorious hermit – almost pathological. And, I’m not a hoarder. But that’s just a symptom of things that I do feel.

My last son is leaving to go to college; my grandchildren are being born. My mother is living with me.

Don’t think for one minute, whoever you are, that you’re not important. You’re so vitally important to stand up and be heard and do what it is you do.

I can’t deny the fact that you like me! You like me.

I’ve never had my heart broken. It’s a very sad state of affairs. I think everybody should have their heart broken. I don’t think it says anything good about me at all.

I’ve never had my heart broken.

I’ve never had my heart broken.

I had to let my ego go a long time ago.

The whole world is waiting. The whole world needs you.

Motherhood is given the brush-off in our society. ‘Oh, I’m just a mom,’ you hear women say. ‘Just’ a mom? Please! Being a mom is everything. It’s mentorship, it’s inspirational, it’s our hope for the future.

Acting has been my lover and best friend. My confidant and my tormentor. It has given me support and broken my heart and mended it.

If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn’t be any God-damned wars in the first place.

Don’t you be afraid, sweetheart. Death is just a part of life, something we’re all destined to do.

Change is never easy.

t took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else’s eyes.

You like me, You really like me.