“It must be noted that it is often the colleague or direct disciple of a new thinker who gets stuck in literal interpretations of the work, tending to freeze the new ideas and language into an inflexible, static condition.”

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’m a bad liar; I don’t know what to say backstage.