Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

Imagination, industry, and intelligence -- the three I s -- are all indispensable to the actress, but of these three the greatest is, without doubt, imagination.

- Terry, Ellen

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

I have often seen an actor laugh off the stage, but I don't remember ever having seen one weep.

Diderot, Denis

If you have to be in a soap opera try not to get the worst role.

George, Boy

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

I mean, the question actors most often get asked is how they can bear saying the same things over and over again, night after night, but God knows the answer to that is, don't we all anyway; might as well get paid for it.

Dundy, Elaine

An actor who knows his business ought to be able to make the London telephone directory sound enthralling.

Sinden, Donald

I'm an assistant storyteller. It's like being a waiter or a gas-station attendant, but I'm waiting on six million people a week, if I'm lucky. [On being an actor]

Ford, Harrison

Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.

Johnson, Samuel

In Europe an actor is an artist. In Hollywood, if he isn't working, he's a bum.

Quinn, Anthony

You reach a point where you say you're not going to do juveniles any longer.

Howard, Ron

10.

Acting deals with very delicate emotions. It is not putting up a mask. Each time an actor acts he does not hide; he exposes himself.

Moreau, Jeanne

11.

This is not a tough job. You read a script. If you like the part and the money is O.K., you do it. Then you remember your lines. You show up on time. You do what the director tells you to do. When you finish, you rest and then go on to the next part. That's it.

Mitchum, Robert

12.

I was born at the age of twelve on a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot.

Garland, Judy

13.

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

14.

Some people are addicts. If they don't act, they don't exist.

Moreau, Jeanne

15.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

16.

In civilized life, where the happiness and indeed almost the existence of man, depends on the opinion of his fellow men. He is constantly acting a studied part.

Irving, Washington

17.

She represents the un-vowed aspiration of the male human being, his potential infidelity -- and infidelity of a very special kind, which would lead him to the opposite of his wife, to the woman of wax whom he could model at will, make and unmake in any way he wished, even unto death.

Duras, Marguerite

18.

The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays that part.

Cervantes, Miguel De

19.

Show me a great actor and I'll show you a lousy husband. Show me a great actress, and you've seen the devil.

Fields, W. C.

20.

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

21.

I never said all actors are cattle, what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.

Hitchcock, Alfred

22.

I don't want to read about some of these actresses who are around today. They sound like my niece in Scarsdale. I love my niece in Scarsdale, but I won't buy tickets to see her act.

Price, Vincent

23.

The actor becomes an emotional athlete. The process is painful -- my personal life suffers.

Pacino, Al

24.

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

25.

There were many times my pants were so thin I could sit on a dime and tell if it was heads or tails.

Tracy, Spencer

26.

Every time I get a script it's a matter of trying to know what I could do with it. I see colors, imagery. It has to have a smell. It's like falling in love. You can't give a reason why.

Olin, Lena

27.

I don't get acting jobs because of my looks.

Baldwin, Alec

28.

Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

29.

First of all, I choose the great [roles], and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don't come, I choose the ones that pay the rent.

Caine, Michael

30.

Talk to them about things they don't know. Try to give them an inferiority complex. If the actress is beautiful, screw her. If she isn't, present her with a valuable painting she will not understand. If they insist on being boring, kick their asses or twist their noses. And that's about all there is to it.

Huston, John

31.

I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment.

Marceau, Marcel

32.

An actress must never lose her ego--without it she has no talent.

Shearer, Norma

33.

If I wasn't an actor, I'd be a secret agent.

Wood, Elijah

34.

The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting.

Chaplin, Charlie

35.

Imagination, industry, and intelligence -- the three I s -- are all indispensable to the actress, but of these three the greatest is, without doubt, imagination.

Terry, Ellen

36.

We become actors without realizing it, and actors without wanting to.

Amiel, Henri Frederic

37.

I'm an actor. And I guess I've done so many movies I've achieved some high visibility. But a star? I guess I still think of myself as kind of a worker ant.

Whitaker, Forest

38.

Remember: there are no small parts, only small actors.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

39.

It's a business you go into because you're an egocentric. It's a very embarrassing profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

40.

The main factor in any form of creativeness is the life of a human spirit, that of the actor and his part, their joint feelings and subconscious creation.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

41.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

42.

Acting provides the fulfillment of never being fulfilled. You're never as good as you'd like to be. So there's always something to hope for.

Jackson, Glenda

43.

I'm disappointed in acting as a craft. I want everything to go back to Orson Welles and fake noses and changing your voice. It's become so much about personality.

Ulrich, Skeet

44.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

45.

Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experience.

Newman, Paul

46.

A true priest is aware of the presence of the altar during every moment that he is conducting a service. It is exactly the same way that a true artist should react to the stage all the time he is in the theater. An actor who is incapable of this feeling will never be a true artist.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

47.

Do not try to push your way through to the front ranks of your profession; do not run after distinctions and rewards; but do your utmost to find an entry into the world of beauty.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

48.

A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar-- you pretend it's not there.

Hannah, Daryl

49.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

50.

For the theatre one needs long arms; it is better to have them too long than too short. An artiste with short arms can never, never make a fine gesture.

Bernhardt, Sarah