I felt like I was flying without a net. But once I realized that the audience was my partner, I was flying a jet, because the people would allow me to develop the character on stage.

So much of life is luck. One day you make a right turn and get hit by a car. Turn left and you meet the love of your life. I think I made the correct turn.

Shirley Valentine is a beautiful character and so well written. What Shirley speaks and thinks is so logical.

We should be able to be ourselves. Make a political stand if you want to.

It wasn't so much that I was all alone on stage, but it was the realization of how much you need the response-you need the audience to tell you where to go.

I felt like I was flying without a net. But once I realized that the audience was my partner, I was flying a jet, because the people would allow me to develop the character on stage.

Animals are thinking, feeling creatures. They're sensitive.

When I went to school, I was in the same mode. I did the things I enjoyed, what I loved.

I just can't wait to get out there on stage. There's no anxiety at all. I love being able to take this journey with the audience, because we all have a ball with it - even if we're crying.

I don't think we should be deprived of the privilege of free speech.

I have certain strong interests that fill my life as well.

Everybody has their thing. I think you can always do what you like.

I love being creative in all forms.

It's never too late to go out and get that feeling back.

I don't eat or wear animals, but I never tell people not to - that's just my view.

If you care enough, you make a difference.

The pursuit of happiness is in our Constitution. We're all entitled to have the best we can.

M*A*S*H offered real characters and everybody identified with them because they had such soul. The humor was intelligent and it always assumed that you had an intellect.

You only know what you know.

Acting is not hiding to me; it's revealing. We give you license to feel. 'Hey, she's crying, so it's okay if I cry, too.' That's the most important thing in the world, because when you stop feeling, that's when you're dead.

Alan Alda is a dear friend, nothing like the cynical, bitter Hawkeye.

Hot Lips changed a lot in eleven years. Initially, Margaret Houlihan behaved as though a man were the only thing that could complete her life, and she didn't see what richness her life contained. She gained a lot of self-esteem through the years, and she came to realize that what she did, what she offered, was valuable.

If you're 90 and look good in a mini-skirt, go for it. What is 'age appropriate'? Such nonsense. My mother lived to 106, so what's middle-age? Seventy is the new 50.

My first thought in life was wanting to be an actor. I was in ballet slippers and on pointe as soon as I could walk. I always wanted to be an actress, not a mother or housewife.

My parents didn't want me to go into show business. They were afraid of what would happen if I didn't succeed. They wanted me to get married and have babies. I never saw marriage and family in my life.

Watching movies was like going to school for me. It still is. You're always learning. Even if it's bad, you're learning what not to do.

When I left the house to become an actress, my mother literally flung her body across the door and said, 'You're killing me!' It was a very strict household. That can be okay, but there was also no nourishment, either.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

I do like to embed a fictional character firmly in an occupation.

But even with a character like Cary who is relatively outlandish, at the end of the movie he's in a place where I wouldn't have expected him to be - taking on the responsibility of a woman who is pregnant and who used to be his best friend's wife.

Always, your work is the same: You have to tell a story, you have to make a character. It doesn't matter if there are thousands of dollars, millions behind it, or if there is nothing.

Each of us is meant to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and do what no other can exactly do.

I liked Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, and that is the kind of character that I would like to have played. That would have been more in tune with who I really was.

It's the difficulty we had with Mr. Bean, actually, when it went from TV to film. You certainly discover that you need to explain more about a character.

In a lot of ways, the make-up was the character.

The more we study the Indian's character the more we appreciate the marked distinction between the civilized being and the real savage.

So many people have said that to me, that what they really like about Alex is what she brings out in Marissa, and what this situation brings out in her, a hint of happiness and another side to her character.

I've been on the show for six years and I don't even know what her history is. I sort of make things up in my mind, but I think it's hard for an audience to follow and invest in a character when they don't have the details.

It is not true that drink changes a man's character. It may reveal it more clearly.

Because I killed a guy in real life, and because my character kills a guy onstage, they said I could never do anything this great again. I resented that.

Well, I go to the theater today, and its curtain - there is no curtain in this play; the lights go down and go up - and we start. And I live this character for two hours. There are only two of us in the play. And It's a complete experience.

I just kind of understood it, and I threw my love for others and love for life into the character, and was having a blast. I loved playing Dharma. I loved it!

I think if you play a character that is fearless, then it's boring. I think that's what was so incredible about Harrison Ford, is that he always seemed like he was never going to survive it, he's always scared, and yet he always does survive it somehow.

If you look to lead, invest at least 40% of your time managing yourself - your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you, and 15% managing your peers.

Every character I play has to be the hero of his own story, the way we're all heroes of our own lives.

To be a character who feels a deep emotion, one must go into the memory's vault and mix in a sad memory from one's own life.

Character is power; it makes friends, draws patronage and support and opens the way to wealth, honor and happiness.

You have to understand the tone of the movie, because if it's supposed to be funny, it can be funny violent like the Home Alone stuff, but you have to really understand the tone of what you're doing and make the action work for that and for the character.

In Shakespearean tragedy the main source of the convulsion which produces suffering and death is never good: good contributes to this convulsion only from its tragic implication with its opposite in one and the same character.