Acting Quotes - Page 3

• I went to school, majored in theatre, and said 'Mom, I have to choose my own destiny. I want to be an actor.' A couple of weeks after I graduated college I called my mother up and said 'Can I borrow $200?' and she said 'Why don't you act like you've got $200.'

  Arsenio Hall

  Funny, Mom, Mother

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• I really think that effective acting has to do literally with the movement of molecules.

  Glenn Close

  Funny, Humorous, Thinking

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• Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him.

  Orson Welles

  Fake People, Believe, Heart

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• In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the existence, of man depends so much upon the opinion of his fellow men, he is constantly acting a studied part.

  Washington Irving

  Life, Happiness, Men

  Washington Irving (1866). “The Works of Washington Irving ...: Oliver Goldsmith; The sketch book”

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• Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation. It is the rarest thing to find a player who has not had his character affected for the worse by the practice of his profession. Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process.

  Aldous Huxley

  Art, Character, Exercise

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• Actors should be overheard, not listened to, and the audience is 50 percent of the performance.

  Shirley Booth

  Actors, Should, Audience

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• The actors today really need the whip hand. They're so lazy. They haven't got the sense of pride in their profession that the less socially elevated musical comedy and music hall people or acrobats have. The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.

  W. H. Auden

  Pride, Hands, People

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• If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue.

  William Shakespeare

  Wine, Play, Needs

  'As You Like It' (1599) act 5, sc. 4, epilogue l. [3]

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• The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.

  Sydney Smith

  Inspirational, Motivational, Actors

  Rolling Stone, New York, February 8, 1990.

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• If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you.

  William Hazlitt

  Giving, Actors, Half

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• To grasp the full significance of life is the actor's duty, to interpret it is his problem, and to express it his dedication.

  Marlon Brando

  Inspirational, Motivational, Dedication

  FaceBook post by Marlon Brando from May 09, 2014

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• I am acquainted with no immaterial sensuality so delightful as good acting.

  Lord Byron

  Sensual, Actors, Delightful

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• If you are to do justice to [the great roles], you must fly up to them - rather than dragging them down to you - by expanding your range of knowledge and strengthening your imagination. Your imagination must become as real to you as your memories and feelings. What you take into yourself about psychology, politics, sociology, history and so on, will allow you to reach places in yourself you didn't know existed. No line, no image, no thought can be left general. Each must be specific and personal. Your work is not complete until this is so.

  Harold Guskin

  Memories, Real, Justice

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• The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

  Carl Jung

  Love, Leadership, Fun

  Carl Jung (2016). “Psychological Types”, p.152, Routledge

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• It will be thought that I am acting strangely in concerning myself at this day with what appears at first sight and simply a well-known method of fortune-telling.

  A. E. Waite

  Sight, Firsts, Well Known

  A. E. Waite (2012). “The Pictorial Key to the Tarot”, p.5, Courier Corporation

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• It's difficult, if not impossible, to get away with anything false before the camera. That instrument penetrates the husk of the actor; it reveals what's truly happening - if anything, if nothing. A close-up demands absolute truth. It's a severe and awesome truth

  Elia Kazan

  Inspirational, Motivational, Cameras

  Elia Kazan (2011). “Elia Kazan: A Life”, p.485, Knopf

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• All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it's impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Mistake, Ambition, Greatness

  "The Prince". Book by Niccolò Machiavelli, chapter III: Of Mixed Princedoms, 1513.

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• Acting is like a high wire act. Your margin for error is very slim.

  Christine Baranski

  Errors, Wire, Slim

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The audience is the most revered member of the theater. Without an audience, there is no theater. Everything done is ultimately for the enjoyment of the audience. They are our guests, fellow players, and the last spoke in the wheel which can then begin to roll. They make the performance meaningful.

  Viola Spolin

  Meaningful, Player, Theatre

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• Acting gave me the opportunity to do outrageous things. It allowed me to be sad, happy, angry and lustful, even if it was just vicariously.

  Joan Allen

  Opportunity, Lustful, Outrageous

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Consistency is the death of good acting.

  Michael Shurtleff

  Consistency, Good Acting

  Michael Shurtleff (2009). “Audition: Everything an Actor Needs to Know to Get the Part”, p.103, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Art, People, Coughing

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• To me acting is like a jigsaw puzzle. The jigsaw puzzle is of the sky and all the pieces are blue. Out of this you have to create a human being and put it together.

  Henry Winkler

  Jigsaw Puzzles, Blue, Sky

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• Nothing is more powerful than an individual acting out their conscience, thus helping bring the collective conscience to life.

  Norman Cousins

  Life, Motivational, Peace

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• I want to be a great actor someday, and I've decided there's no use philosophizing; the only way is to work at my craft.

  Al Pacino

  Use, Actors, Crafts

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