Quotes

Acting feels like a congenital condition to me - it's in my genes.

It's unfortunate but our society is such that, for women in Hollywood, you get to a certain age and just fall off a cliff. But in my case, I refuse to die. I will hang on, by a little finger if necessary.

The main way you grow is in deepening compassion. Somehow when you go through painful experiences you're more sympathetic to other people's experiences. After you've been working for awhile and discover how much material you have to call on, you end up saying, 'Oh, thank god I had an unhappy childhood!' I suppose there are some actors somewhere who have had a happy childhood. I just haven't met them yet.

[on preparing to undertake a complex role] You have hold of a string that you're following, and you're following where this question leads to that question, and it keeps on going until you come to some specific understanding of this human being - as opposed to every other human being in the world.

I'm a deep-water swimmer. Everything on the surface is usually a mask. I always know what's behind the mask.

My dog knows all my secrets, but she's sworn to secrecy!

All of my life I have asked the question: who would I be if I had grown up in a loving home. And I have no way to answer it. I don't know if I would be placid and satisfied with whatever is around me; a happy, jolly, sedentary person. Did [hardship] stimulate me? I wanted out of there, and I got out on the day that I was legally able to.

[on Requiem for a Dream (2000)] My agent sent me the script and I read it and I called her and I said, "This is the most depressing script I've ever read. Who on earth is going to want to see this movie? I can't imagine." And she said, "Before you turn it down, there's a little movie called Pi (1998), you should look at." I had never heard of it. Within the first three minutes I went, "Oh, I get it. The guy's an artist. Okay." So I said, all right, I'll do it.

Really, there isn't such a thing as "method acting." There's only good acting and bad acting. And if you look at somebody acting and you say, "Oh, that's method acting," that's bad acting. Because the technique shouldn't show.

[on her Emmy nomination for Mrs. Harris (2005), in which she appeared for 14 seconds] I thought it was fabulous. My next ambition is to get nominated for seven seconds, and, ultimately, I want to be nominated for a picture in which I don't even appear.

[on the Academy Awards 1974 Oscar Annual quoted by Robert Osborne] I've wanted an Oscar since I was seven years old. It is the basis of all my secret fantasies.