“I’m a serious-minded and intense little devil – terribly gauche and so tense that I don’t see how people can stay in the same room as me. I know I couldn’t tolerate myself.”

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.

There is no way to be truly great in this world. We are all impaled on the crook of conditioning.

He must be superhuman in his efforts to store away in the core of his subconscious everything that he might be called upon to use in the expression of his art.

I can’t let in the light.It will destroy my performance like light destroys film

Reality doesn’t have any preconceived ideas. You’ve got to learn how to smoke the cigarette, not act smoking the cigarette.

The gratification comes in the doing, not in the results.