“Anyone with the physical qualifications can do that. So the director’s task is just that – to direct, to point the way. Then the actor takes over.”

A fish that is in the water has no choice that he is. Genius would have it that we swim in sand. We are fish and we drown.

Being a good actor isn’t easy. Being a man is even harder. I want to be both before I’m done.

Only the gentle are ever really strong.

An actual right is something that governments need merely to secure, not to implement.

You are who you are meant to be, Dance as if no one’s watching, Love as if it’s all you know, Dream as if you’ll live forever, Live as if you’ll die today

And he must be allowed the space, the freedom to express himself in the role. Without that space, an actor is no more than an unthinking robot with a chest-full of push-buttons.

An actor must interpret life, and in order to do so must be willing to accept all the experiences life has to offer.

When an actor plays a scene exactly the way a director orders, it isn’t acting. It’s following instructions. Anyone with the physical qualifications can do that.

You’re tearing me apart!

Being an actor is the loneliest thing in the world. You are all alone with your concentration and imagination, and that’s all you have.

What do we need all that for?”If a picture is psychologically motivated, if there is truth in the relationship in it, then I think that picture will do good.

Nowadays, he lives in a world we don’t understand too well, the actor’s world. We don’t see too much of him. But he’s a good boy, my Jim.

Being an actor is the loneliest thing in the world. You are all alone with your concentration and imagination, and that’s all you have.

Being a senior in high school means you’re not only getting closer to adulthood, but also ready to start thinking about your dreams and aspirations, whether that’s applying for college, joining the military, or seeing the world.

If I had one day when I didn’t have to be all confused and didn’t have to feel that I was ashamed of everything. If I felt that I belonged someplace. You know?

Take it easy driving– the life you save may be mine.

The play is called Stalking The Bogeyman. It was a story on This American Life, and my former roommate is the artistic director of the New York Repertory Theater.

All you can really do as director is sort of set a tone.

The only way that Hollywood ever skews toward liberal is because part of what we make out of Hollywood involves writers, actors, directors, musicians, set designers, and photographers.

I like great directors who are scarce. Prolific ones are nice too but for me, there’s something about the scarcity that makes it all the more valuable.

When an actor plays a scene exactly the way a director orders, it isn’t acting. It’s following instructions.

My advice to female directors is not to wait until you feel like your ideas have been pre-certified or until you think you’ve gotten some approval for them.

The poetic way of looking at it is which project is going to choose me as a director.

I don’t come to work as an actor. There are many directors who can direct without ever having acted and do a great job and connect with their actors and lead them to excellent performances without themselves having had an acting background.