Quotes

I only give line readings. I love line readings - they just all have to be buried. That's my style of acting. Buried line readings. Buried overacting.

I'm a loner. I don't like beautiful people, but I find beauty in the grotesque. And in the sweet soul inside someone who has been able to get through their life without being a rat's ass. Such people should be collected, should be swept up immediately and kept in a box of broken people. I've collected people my whole life. Sometimes it ends badly, but it's absolutely never on my part. Because I know how fabulous I am. You're just going to have to take my word for it - I'm an incredible person. I do good deeds, and I love people, but the only way I can do these things is to stay apart. Because you can just stand so much. But the people who you meet in your life, who cross your path, the ones who are decent, should be collected.

The last thing my mother said to me was, 'SuSu, your life is a celebration of everything that is cheap and tawdry.' I've always liked that, and I've always tried to live up to it.

I hate success. I have the ambition of a slug. I work when I need the money, which is about once a year. Success freaks me out. If it wasn't for that, I'd like to work more, but the more successful you are, the more crap you're offered. So it seems like the less I work, the more I get the special things. Most of the people that are successful really suck to me. I don't think success is a judge of talent at all, not these days.

I've been here for my own pleasure. Strictly. I even found pleasure in displeasure. I would ride those seas and walk those planks. Arrrr.

[on being cast in oddball roles] I don't seek out these parts! I take these parts to pay the rent!

I don't like ingénue people and I don't like to see them in the movies. I like people with heart and soul, and character work is soul.

[Remembering her film Tales of Ordinary Madness (1981)] I don't talk in this movie very much, which can be better. I hate talking. That's why I hate theater, these plays with monologues. Keep it down to the bone. Pass the information on, but don't break their balls about emotions. When you play a c***, you'd better have good writing backing you up. When you talk on and on about your goddamned problems, I can't stand it as an actress, I hate it as an audience.

[Remembering her career after earning an Academy Award nomination for her performance in Fat City (1972)] I couldn't even get a job as a bag lady. I went up for bag lady parts and they'd say, 'You're too beautiful now. We thought you were a bag lady from Fat City. Then I'd go up for beautiful parts and they'd say, 'You're not beautiful enough'.

I've become incredibly antisocial. I spend all my time alone. I have this one friend who comes around. I think I have two friends in L.A., last time I looked. I'm disillusioned with the whole fuckin' world. I'm having my tubes tied next week. I just want to ensure that no actors come out of me.