- Act before you think – your instincts are more honest than your thoughts.

- Being an actor was never supposed to be about fame and money. Being an actor is a religious calling because you’ve been given the ability, the gift to inspire humanity.

- Find in yourself those human things which are universal.

- An ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words.

_ Every little moment has a meaning all its own.

Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the Quotes category with the tag(s) Quotes, Sanford Meisner.

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- Invent nothing, deny nothing.

- In my racket, which is Show Business, you learn through watching and through doing, that’s it.

- People may or may not say what they mean… but they always say something designed to get what they want.

- An actor can no more act upon the order ‘Be happy’ than she can upon the order ‘Do not think of a hippopotamus.’

- The surprise is half the battle. Many things are half the battle, losing is half the battle. Let’s think about what’s the whole battle.

-There’s no such thing as talent; you just have to work hard enough.

- Take away the director from the staged play and what do you get? Usually a diminution of strife, a shorter rehearsal period and a better production.

- We respond to a drama to that extent to which it corresponds to our dreamlife.

- The product of the artist has become less important than the fact of the artist. We wish to absorb this person. We wish to devour someone who has experienced the tragic. In our society this person is much more important than anything he might create.

- In ‘real life’ the mother begging for her child’s life, the criminal begging for a pardon, the atoning lover pleading for one last chance — these people give no attention whatever to their own state, and all attention to the state of that person from whom they require their object. This outward-directedness brings the actor in ‘real life’ to a state of magnificent responsiveness and makes his/her progress thrilling to watch. On the stage, similarly, it is the progress of the outward-directed Actor, who behaves with no regards to his/her personal state, but with all regard for the responses of his antagonists, which thrills the viewers.

Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the Quotes category with the tag(s) David Mamet, directors, lists, playwrights.

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Some more quotations, starting with my new mantra: I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come. – Abraham Lincoln

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. – Will Rogers.

My education was doing good plays and also stinkers. When you do a stinker, you learn how to act. – Jeffrey Tambor.

The absolute truth is the thing that makes people laugh. – Carl Reiner.

Jackie Gleason said that comedy is the most exacting form of dramatic art, because it has an instant critic: laughter. – Chuck Jones.

Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation. -Bette Davis.

All I want to see from an actor is the intensity and accuracy of their listening. – Alan Rickman.

Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over. – Alan Rickman

To grasp the full significance of life is the actor’s duty; to interpret it his problem; and to express it his dedication. – James Dean.

I need somebody to reflect me back, or to give me their reflection. – Judi Dench.

It’s so important in this business to stay open and childlike. You don’t want to block yourself. – Kirsten Dunst.

Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful. – Coach John Wooden,UCLA

Few filmmakers concentrate on the story. With little rehearsal time, anything you do onscreen is speed painting.- John Malkovich

I think a lot of the instincts you have doing comedy are the same for doing drama: it’s essentially about listening. – Will Ferrell.

When given an opportunity, deliver excellence and never quit. – Robert Rodriguez.

A lot of what acting is is paying attention. – Robert Redford

To be an artist means to search, to find and look at realities. To be an artist means to never look away. – Akira Kurosawa

Collaboration is like the sex of creativity. – Francis Ford Coppola

There is no formula for success. But there is a formula for failure and that is to try to please everybody. – Nicholas Ray

We all steal, but if we’re smart we steal from great directors. Then, we can call it ‘influence’. – Krzysztof Kieslowski

A film director is a midwife. His business is to deliver the actor of a child that he did not know he had inside him. – Jean Renoir

An actor is at his best a kind of unfrocked priest who can call on heaven and hell to mesmerize innocents. – Alec Guinness

Talent is as common as horseshit in a stable. The cultivation of it is extremely rare. – Eric Morris

Work for the actor lies in two areas: the ability to consistently create reality and the ability to express that reality. Strasberg

An ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words. – Sanford Meisner

An Actor has to burn inside with an outer ease. – Michael Chekhov

A good artist should be isolated. If he isn’t isolated, something is wrong. – Orson Welles

Anxiety is the Handmaiden of Creativity. – Chuck Jones

A lot of actors talk about ‘doing their homework’. Very few of them do it. – Tony Scott

Shut up and listen. Then react. And then act. – Lucille Ball

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that. – Mark Twain.

90% of success is just showing up. – Woody Allen

For fast acting relief, try slowing down. – Lily Tomlin

Show me a great actor and I’ll show you a lousy husband. Show me a great actress, and you’ve seen the devil. – WC Fields

Playing Shakespeare requires technique. You don’t play a Bach toccata by ‘getting in the mood’. – Kevin Kline

Acting is mostly about listening. If you focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself. – Alan Rickman

Drama lies in extreme exaggeration of the feelings, an exaggeration that dislocates flat everyday reality. – Eugene Ionesco

Your self-confidence is directly connected to how much you feel you are making a difference in your world. – Brian Tracy

Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary. – Mark Twain

Take your beating, go back to your corner, rest, and take a beating again. Believe in your own talent. – Bruce Paltrow

If you’re going to tell people the truth, be funny or they’ll kill you. – Billy Wilder

Don’t be too clever for an audience. Make it obvious. Make the subtleties obvious also. – Billy Wilder

Quit now, you’ll never make it. If you disregard this advice, you’ll be halfway there. – David Zucker

An actor is never so great as when he reminds you of an animal – falling like a cat…moving like a fox. – Francois Truffaut

All great work is preparing yourself for the accident to happen. – Sidney Lumet
(This one makes me feel a little bit better)

Experience is what you get while looking for something else. – Federico Fellini

A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something. – Frank Capra

The magic doesn’t come from within the director’s mind, it comes from within the hearts of the actors. – James Cameron

Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. – Samuel Beckett

Ensure that your script is watertight. If it’s not on the page, it will never magically appear on the screen. – Richard E. Grant

On film you put all your energies into a single glance. – Alan Rickman

The key to acting is the reality of the doing. -Brent Noel

Success in show business depends on your ability to make and keep friends. – Sophie Tucker

Acting has to do with saying it as if you meant it, so for me the words are always very important. – Christopher Walken

Life’s like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters. – Seneca

Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the General, Quotes category with the tag(s) actors, directors, lists.

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A random selection of inpsirational, but mainly funny, quotations.

“What’s interesting about the process of acting is how often you don’t know what you’re doing.” Alan Rickman

“Writing is what you do when you are ready and acting is what you do when someone else is ready.” Steve Martin

“An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises.” Mae West

“Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” George Burns

“If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you.” William Hazlitt (v. v. interesting )

“Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation.” Bette Davis

“Half the people in Hollywood are dying to be discovered and the other half are afraid they will be.” Lionel Barrymore

“Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” Edmund Keene (on his death bed)

“As an actor there’s no autonomy, unless you’re prepared to risk the possibility of starving.” Ben Kingsley

“Acting isn’t really a creative profession. It’s an interpretative one.” Paul Newman

“Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” George Burns

“What was peculiar about me was what made me successful. I’ve seen good actors go into analysis and really lose it.” Bette Davis

“The ideas of the great playwrights are almost always larger than the experiences of even the best actors.” Stella Adler

“Actors are one family over the entire world.” Eleanor Roosevelt

“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” Buster Keaton

Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the Quotes category with the tag(s) actors, lists.

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- There’s really no way to teach you how to act, but there is a way to teach you how to teach yourself to act. That’s kind of what it is; once you learn the little tricks that work for you, pretty soon you find yourself doing that.

- My old drama coach used to say, “Don’t just do something, stand there.” Gary Cooper wasn’t afraid to do nothing.

- You have to trust your instincts. There’s a moment when an actor has it, and he knows it. Behind the camera you can feel the moment even more clearly. And once you’ve got it, once you feel it, you can’t second-guess yourself. You can find a million reasons why something didn’t work. But if it feels right, and it looks right, it works. Without sounding like a pseudointellectual dipshit, it’s my responsibility to be true to myself. If it works for me, it’s right.

- Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.

- We boil at different degrees. class zelnorm suit action

Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the General, Quotes category with the tag(s) actors, Clint Eastwood, lists.

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- Acting is a very personal process. It has to do with expressing your own personality, and discovering the character you’re playing through your own experience – so we’re all different.

- Before acting, I wanted to become a journalist. I also toyed with the idea of being a chef – but that’s only when people asked me what I wanted to be. In fact, I always used to say I wanted to be an actor, but I didn’t ever believe that I was good enough to be come one.

- I don’t make much distinction between being a stand-up comic and acting Shakespeare – in fact, unless you’re a good comedian, you’re never going to be able to play Hamlet properly.

- I think the point to be understood is that we’re all different. I’ve never been a fan of theories of acting. I didn’t go to drama school, so I was never put through a training that was limited by someone saying, ‘This is the way you should act.

- When you were on stage, you could be absolutely open about your emotions and indulge them and express yourself in a way that – in real life – I wasn’t doing.

- If I was on a march at the moment I would be saying to everyone: ‘Be honest with each other. Admit there are limitless possibilities in relationships, and love as many people as you can in whatever way you want, and get rid of your inhibitions, and we’ll all be happy.

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Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the Quotes category with the tag(s) actors, Ian McKellen, lists.

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- Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.

- I’ll always be there because I’m a skilled professional actor. Whether or not I’ve any talent is beside the point.

- Timing in comedy is like walking on a razor blade.

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Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the Quotes category with the tag(s) actors, lists, Michael Caine.

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- Acting is not about being someone different. It’s finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there.

- All an actor has is their blind faith that they are who they say they are today, in any scene.

- All an actor has, I think, is their heart, really…that’s the place you go for your inspiration. If my heart wasn’t filled with inspiration, where would I get stuff? What would I have to express?

- You just have to keep on doing what you do. It’s the lesson I get from my husband; he just says, Keep going. Start by starting.

- Everybody is interesting. Everybody has something unexpected to offer and the job of acting is to pull it out of each other.

- We’re all sustained by relationships. Sometimes it’s by marriages, great friendships, by a sustaining relationship to a parent. But that’s the glue of society.

- The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.

On confidence: Meryl Streep admits she has “varying degrees of confidence and self-loathing…. You can have a perfectly horrible day where you doubt your talent. It could be about not feeling able to achieve a certain scene or about an emotion you feel you weren’t able to get to… Or that you’re boring and they’re going to find out that you don’t know what you’re doing… any one of those things.”

- Process is clunky, process looks like bad acting, process is not anything you should let anybody see…. It’s like we show you a new building and we show you the plumbing and the sewer line.

- We need art as much as we need good works. You need it like food. You need it for inspiration, to keep going on the days that you’re low. We need each other in that way

- Integrate what you believe in every single area of your life. Take your heart to work and ask the most and best of everybody else, too.

- People want what they want. Sometimes you just have to walk in defiance of it and just be yourself.

Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the Quotes category with the tag(s) actors, lists, Meryl Streep.

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