I actually made an effort to reject acting, to shove it out of my body, because I didn't want my kids to have an actress as a mother-to have, like, a silly person.

I knew an actor's career goes up and down and back up again. Your standing in this business can't be your whole identity; otherwise, you're doomed.

One fantasy is that I just do a Don Roos movie every year if that's possible. If he'd have me.

I've been careful to keep my life separate because it's important to me to have privacy and for my life not to be a marketing device for a movie or a TV show. I'm worth more than that.

Shirley MacLaine said, You're so funny, then gave me a hug. Everything went white. I couldn't hear, I couldn't see. I thought I was going to pass out.

We wanted to do a woman on a reality show because that's what's happening right now-it's part of our culture.

I'd played dumbasses a lot. On Mad About You, I played a very dumb waitress and they saw me.

I do like reality shows, and I watch some of them because they're high drama. It's also just fun to watch people have honest reactions.

I actually made an effort to reject acting, to shove it out of my body, because I didn't want my kids to have an actress as a mother-to have, like, a silly person.

I have no affectation when I speak.

Blonde is dumb comedy, red hair is smart, sexy comedy.

I'm pretty middle-of-the-road. There are some issues I'm more conservative on.

I'll accept being Phoebe to people for a while longer, given how much fun it was. That's totally fair.

Watching a person lose their dignity used to be uncomfortable, and now it's an expected part of the program that we're becoming comfortable with.

On network TV, I'm still Phoebe to people, and it would be hard to convince them otherwise in the bright lights of a sitcom.

I'm the youngest in my family, and everyone is very funny, and I was always trying to keep up with them. I just loved making people laugh.

Christina Ricci is amazing, the most professional actor I think I've ever met. You can be chatting with her and when they call action, she's right there.

An actress, around 40, on television, that's where you get the most torture, I think.

My hair got lighter, and I gradually went blonde. I liked it. Had more fun. But my image of myself in my head is this dark-haired person.

You become a celebrity, not because of your work or what you do, but because you have no privacy.

We treat sex so casually and use it for everything but what it is-which is ultimately making another human being with thoughts and feelings and rights.

I found the right man, got married, and just had to keep not reinventing myself, just deciding that it doesn't matter what you are if you are a good person.

I've learned you can make a mistake and the whole world doesn't end. I had to learn to allow myself to make a mistake without becoming defensive and unforgiving.

I wanted to be the kind of woman who would attract a certain kind of man that I could respect. That was my thinking. It had to do with the kind of couple I would be a part of.

Since I had the baby I can't tolerate anything violent or sad, I saw the Matrix and I had my eyes closed through a lot of it, though I didn't need to. I would peek, and then think, oh OK, I can see that.

It was always part of the plan to move into acting.

Be where the acting is. I live in Houston. Dallas is 4 1/2 hours away. I let them know there's no difference.

My mother keeps things in perspective for me. She makes me realize that the acting I do and love is no more important than what one of my brothers does-he works in a shoe repair shop. If my career ever tapers off, I'll go to college.

In Hungary, acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly as one studies for a degree in medicine, law, or philosophy.

I think acting is about forgetting yourself in order to give the best of yourself. It's passing through you more than you're creating it. You're not the flower, but the vase which holds the flower.

In LA, too many people want to go the quickest route from A to B. Method acting offers them that.

I don't see it as a form of healing, because if you have wounds that are bleeding I don't think acting will ever get them to stop. But I find acting is a form of illumination.

Maybe I can't act, but I know the gimmicks. I studied acting all my life and know what's good for me.

I know that if I'd had to go and take an exam for acting, I wouldn't have got anywhere. You don't take exams for acting, you take your courage.

I'm not acting, but I am acting.

I've done a lot of acting. I'm not saying I'm the greatest, but I'd love to act, I'd love to sing.

I had a bonding problem when I went off and boxed for five years. I was over in Europe and Asia fighting because I wanted to do something different; I was tired of acting. But the thing is, when I was done doing that, I couldn't get a job.

Acting for me is not that quid pro quo.

If you're acting, then there's a prescribed way to behave; whereas in life there's no prescribed way. So acting feels like a comfortable way to get through the day.

When I was a kid, the idea of why I wanted acting to be the thing I do for the rest of my life was different. It was, Oh yeah, I'll get girls and be famous.

And then, I suppose, there's also a cinematic reality on top of that. Because it was extremely difficult to keep tabs on, it was quite confusing acting that.

I read. It's also nice for me to get involved in schoolwork, which is a totally different world than acting. It makes me feel like I am doing things that normal people are doing at my age.

It's a living, breathing thing, acting.

A few nights ago I went to a Hollywood screening of a small independent film made by Sally Kirkland, an old friend of mine who also did terrific job acting in it. There were other actors in it and they were all terrific.

Plastic surgery and breast implants are fine for people who want that, if it makes them feel better about who they are. But, it makes these people, actors especially, fantasy figures for a fantasy world. Acting is about being real being honest.

I don't see my dancing or acting as two separate things. I don't define them separately, so I can't say one has helped the other, It's all the same thing. More than anything I love being on stage and performing.

In any case, his judgment and set of values, acting alone or through his assistants, determine not only what is gold and what is dross but the design of the history which he creates out of the metal. The historian decides what is significant, and what is not.

It always surprised me that I was getting acting work.

Acting doesn't bring anything to a text. On the contrary, it detracts from it.