“All tedious research is worth one inspired moment.”

Once in a while, there’s stuff that makes me say, That’s what theatre’s about. It has to be a human event on the stage, and that doesn’t happen very often.

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. Just because he doesn’t look like a violin is no reason to assume his techniques should be thought of as less difficult.

Marlon was so sensitive, you thought the poor guy just had a bad education.

no work of art is ever finished, nothing is ever static, no performance is for keeps.

I think, by and large, the level of acting is mediocre. When I go to the theatre, I get so angry. I don’t go.

I love going to the movies; I love watching good movie actors. They must know something I don’t.

I love playing Chekhov. That’s the hardest; that’s why I love it most.

The knowledge that every day there is something more to learn, something higher to reach for, something new to make for others, makes each day infinitely precious

I won’t go to England because they won’t let my dog in.

Usually, someone who’s in a show gets me a ticket. I feel cornered. I can’t walk out if I don’t like it.

Since the time of the ancient Greeks a democracy has depended on its philosophers and creative artists. It can only flourish by continuous probing, prodding, and questioning of the social conditions under which man exists and tries to better himself.

We were not allowed to say, Screw, but we could say, Hump the hostess, because hump is in Shakespeare.

Thoughts and feelings are suspended in a vacuum unless they instigate and feed the selected actions, and it is the characters actions which reveal the character in the play.

The need to be loved and protected is at a peak when we feel abandoned and are particularly vulnerable to difficult circumstances.

One cannot demand of art that it pay you in any other way than in the satisfaction of the work itself.

If you want a bourgeois existence, you shouldn’t be an actor. You’re in the wrong profession.

I have no idea what my teacher’s intentions were – whether she was trying to inspire us or if she actually thought visiting her Manhattan brownstone with her view of Central Park qualified as a school trip.

Men in excess of happiness or misery are equally inclined to severity. Witness conquerors and monks! It is mediocrity alone, and a mixture of prosperous and adverse fortune that inspire us with lenity and pity.

We all want to inspire! As we go on our life’s journey, some people inspire us and in turn, we would like to do something to inspire other people.

The French say you get hungry when you’re eating, and I get inspired when I’m working. It’s my engine.

If the United States is to produce a nation of investors-as we must if we are to gain financial world-leadership-it is imperative that boards of directors be so constituted as to adequately represent the interests and inspire the complete confidence of investors of moderate substance.

Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out.

No matter where you are, you’re always a bit on your own, always an outsider.

Anything that inspires unselfishness makes for our ennoblement. Christmas does that. I am all for Christmas.