Actors Quotes

Most popular actors quotes

An actor is like a cigar; the more you puff him the smaller he gets.

praise

After my screen test, the director clapped his hands gleefully and yelled, She can't talk! She can't act! She's sensational!

talent

When an actor has money he doesn't send letters, he sends telegrams. - Anton Chekhov quote.
When an actor has money he doesn't send letters, he sends telegrams.
If you really want to help the American theater, don't be an actress, dahling. Be an audience. - Tallulah Bankhead quote.
If you really want to help the American theater, don't be an actress, dahling. Be an audience.

audiences

Some of the greatest love affairs I've known have involved one actor-unassisted. - Wilson Mizner quote.
Some of the greatest love affairs I've known have involved one actor-unassisted.
An actor's success has the life expectancy of a small boy about to look into a gas tank with a lighted match. - Fred Allen quote.
An actor's success has the life expectancy of a small boy about to look into a gas tank with a lighted match.
For an actress to be a success, she must have the face of a Venus, the brains of a Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of a Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros. - Ethel Barrymore quote.
For an actress to be a success, she must have the face of a Venus, the brains of a Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of a Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros.
An actor is a sculptor who carves in snow.
To grasp the full significance of life is the actor's duty, to interpret it his problem, and to express it his dedication. - Marlon Brando quote.
To grasp the full significance of life is the actor's duty, to interpret it his problem, and to express it his dedication.
An actor is at most a poet and at least an entertainer. - Marlon Brando quote.
An actor is at most a poet and at least an entertainer.
The movie actor, like the sacred king of primitive tribes, is a God in captivity.
The real actor–like any real artist—has a direct line to the collective heart. - Bette Davis quote.
The real actor–like any real artist—has a direct line to the collective heart.
Actors are a nuisance in the earth, the very offal of society.
Actors are often thought of as talking props.
The best actors do not let the wheels show.
Henry Fonda Movie Characters of Leading Performers of the Sound Era
Modesty is the artifice of actors, similar to passion in call-girls.
Essentially what actors do is put colors on a palette for directors to paint with.
The actor must know that since he, himself, is the instrument, he must play on it to serve the character with the same effortless dexterity with which the violinist makes music on his. - Uta Hagen quote.
The actor must know that since he, himself, is the instrument, he must play on it to serve the character with the same effortless dexterity with which the violinist makes music on his.
Actor: A musician who plays on a homemade instrument—himself. - Helen Hayes quote.
Actor: A musician who plays on a homemade instrument—himself.
In The Paradox of Acting she'd read: All actors are whores. They want only one thing: to seduce you. - Joyce Carol Oates quote.
In The Paradox of Acting she'd read: All actors are whores. They want only one thing: to seduce you.
The difference between being a director and being an actor is the difference between being the carpenter banging the nails into the wood, and being the piece of wood the nails are being banged into.

movie director

Insecurity, commonly regarded as a weakness in normal people, is the basic tool of the actor's trade.

insecurity

Actors are the jockeys of literature. Others supply the horses, the plays, and we simply make them run.
The body of an actor is like a well in which experiences are stored, then tapped when needed. - Simone Signoret quote.
The body of an actor is like a well in which experiences are stored, then tapped when needed.
In the language of an actor, to know is synonymous with to feel. - Konstantin Stanislavsky quote.
In the language of an actor, to know is synonymous with to feel.
The imagination of the actor adorns the text of the playwright with fanciful patterns and colors from his own invisible palette. - Konstantin Stanislavsky quote.
The imagination of the actor adorns the text of the playwright with fanciful patterns and colors from his own invisible palette.

imagination

The actor is
A metaphysician in the dark, twanging
An instrument, twanging a wiry string that gives
Sounds. - Wallace Stevens quote.
The actor is
A metaphysician in the dark, twanging
An instrument, twanging a wiry string that gives
Sounds.
An actor is never so great as when he reminds you of an animal—falling like a cat, lying like a dog, moving like a fox. - François Truffaut quote.
An actor is never so great as when he reminds you of an animal—falling like a cat, lying like a dog, moving like a fox.
The French philosopher Denis Diderot said that the best actor sits inside his own performance as a cool spectator of the effects he is creating in an audience. - Garry Wills quote.
The French philosopher Denis Diderot said that the best actor sits inside his own performance as a cool spectator of the effects he is creating in an audience.
Garry Wills Certain Trumpets: The Nature of Leadership
Never go on stage without your motor running. - Stella Adler quote.
Never go on stage without your motor running.
It does get old to have to always be a monkey in a zoo. In the day-to-day thing to have people looking, talking, grabbing, needing something—I don't know what it's like anymore to be anonymous.
I am really a cat transformed into a woman. - Brigitte Bardot quote.
I am really a cat transformed into a woman.

transformation

My favorite review described me as the cinematic equivalent of junk mail.
Stand-up is like drawing with primary colors crayons—it's a beautiful and satisfying world—but acting is like the big box of 148. - Brett Butler quote.
Stand-up is like drawing with primary colors crayons—it's a beautiful and satisfying world—but acting is like the big box of 148.
Be like a duck, my mother used to tell me.  Remain calm on the surface and paddle like hell underneath.
I'm the female equivalent of a counterfeit $20 bill.  Half of what you see is a pretty good reproduction, the rest is a fraud. - Cher quote.
I'm the female equivalent of a counterfeit $20 bill.  Half of what you see is a pretty good reproduction, the rest is a fraud.
Cher Star Speak
Acting is the greatest answer to my loneliness that I have found.
I have always been driven by some distant music—a battle hymn no doubt—for I have been at war from the beginning. - Bette Davis quote.
I have always been driven by some distant music—a battle hymn no doubt—for I have been at war from the beginning.
I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal achieved satisfies.  Success only breeds a new goal.  The golden apple devoured has seeds.  It is endless. - Bette Davis quote.
I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal achieved satisfies.  Success only breeds a new goal.  The golden apple devoured has seeds.  It is endless.
My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose. - Bette Davis quote.
My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.
My purpose in life does not include a hankering to charm society.

charm

I guess a film in which I didn't end up in bed, in the sea, or in a hot tub, would have the same appeal as a Clint Eastwood movie in which nobody got shot.
The stage might be the only place I really feel at home.  I like the greasepaint, the lights, the romance of it all. - Faye Dunaway quote.
The stage might be the only place I really feel at home.  I like the greasepaint, the lights, the romance of it all.
To be a character who feels a deep emotion, one must go into the memory vault and mix in a sad memory from one's own life.
I don't use any particular method.  I'm from the let's pretend school of acting. - Harrison Ford quote.
I don't use any particular method.  I'm from the let's pretend school of acting.
Acting in Star Wars, I felt like a raisin in a gigantic fruit salad.
I'm a whore. All actors are whores. We sell our bodies to the highest bidder.
When people ask me about my story, I just go through the positive stuff: the tent-pole moments, the big landmark checkpoints.
I look at myself like a show dog.  I've got to keep her clipped and trimmed and in good shape. - Dolly Parton quote.
I look at myself like a show dog.  I've got to keep her clipped and trimmed and in good shape.
Norman Bates is the Hamlet of horror roles.
It's hard to act in the morning. The muse isn't even awake.
I can sing as well as Fred Astaire can act.
I'm not handsome in the classical sense. The eyes droop, the mouth is crooked, the teeth aren't straight, the voice sounds like a Mafioso pallbearer, but somehow it all works. - Sylvester Stallone quote.
I'm not handsome in the classical sense. The eyes droop, the mouth is crooked, the teeth aren't straight, the voice sounds like a Mafioso pallbearer, but somehow it all works.
Working for Mr. DeMille was like playing house in the world's most expensive department store. - Gloria Swanson quote.
Working for Mr. DeMille was like playing house in the world's most expensive department store.
My comedy is like emotional hang-gliding. - Robin Williams quote.
My comedy is like emotional hang-gliding.

comedians

What Einstein was to physics, what Babe Ruth was to home runs, what Emily Post was to table manners—that's what Edward G. Robinson was to dying like a dirty rat. - Russell Baker quote.
What Einstein was to physics, what Babe Ruth was to home runs, what Emily Post was to table manners—that's what Edward G. Robinson was to dying like a dirty rat.
He moved through a movie scene like an exquisite paper knife. - Heywood Campbell Broun quote.
He moved through a movie scene like an exquisite paper knife.
This man, in words of Emerson's, carries the holiday in his eye; he is fit to stand the gaze of millions.
Meryl Streep is an acting machine in the same sense that a shark is a killing machine. - Cher quote.
Meryl Streep is an acting machine in the same sense that a shark is a killing machine.
Cher Film Yearbook
To see him act was like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning. - Samuel Coleridge quote.
To see him act was like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.
Joan always cries a lot.  Her tear ducts must be very close to her bladder. - Bette Davis quote.
Joan always cries a lot.  Her tear ducts must be very close to her bladder.
Lana Turner is to an evening gown what Frank Lloyd Wright is to a pile of lumber. - Rex Harrison quote.
Lana Turner is to an evening gown what Frank Lloyd Wright is to a pile of lumber.
There's a lot of poetry in his face.
There is something elemental about Bette—a demon within her which threatens to break out and eat everybody, beginning with their ears. - John Huston quote.
There is something elemental about Bette—a demon within her which threatens to break out and eat everybody, beginning with their ears.
It's like being bombed by water-melons.
Alan Ladd Sophia: An Intimate Biography
A deer in the body of a woman, living resentfully in the Hollywood zoo. - Clare Booth Luce quote.
A deer in the body of a woman, living resentfully in the Hollywood zoo.
She made voluptuousness a common American commodity as accessible as chewing gum.
She's like a delicate fawn, crossed with a Buick.
If they tell you that she died of sleeping pills you must know that she died of a wasting grief, of a slow bleeding at the soul.
Working with her is like being hit over the head by a Valentine's Day card.
A vacuum with nipples.
A graduate of the Mount Rushmore School of Acting.
Tony Randall was the Laurence Olivier of light comic actors.
A fellow with the inventiveness of Albert Einstein but with the attention span of Daffy Duck.
It seems to me you lived your life
like a candle in the wind.
It has been said that she died in harness.  That expression of a plodder overtaken by death is inadequate for so gallant, so defiantly twinkling an exit.  She was a boat that went to the bottom with its orchestra playing gaily. - Alexander Woollcott quote.
It has been said that she died in harness.  That expression of a plodder overtaken by death is inadequate for so gallant, so defiantly twinkling an exit.  She was a boat that went to the bottom with its orchestra playing gaily.
Even her eyelashes acted. - Virginia Woolf quote.
Even her eyelashes acted.