THESPIAN QUOTES
"You have to believe in yourself, that's the secret. Even when I was in the orphanage, when I was roaming the street trying to find enough to eat, even then I thought of myself as the greatest actor in the world."
Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) actor and director
"Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four."
Katharine Hepburn (1909 - 2003 ) actress
"I don't know what is better than the work that is given to the actor — to teach the human heart the knowledge of itself."
Laurence Olivier (1907-1989) actor, director & producer
"Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it."
Tallulah Bankhead, actress (1902 - 1968)
"Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing."
Sir Ralph Richardson (1902 - 1983) actor
"With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it's just not acting. It's lying."
Johnny Depp (1963 - ) actor
"You must be able to look coldly at what you do. The writer must know for whom he writes, why he writes, and if his writing says what he means to say."
Harper Lee, whose novel "To Kill A Mockingbird" was adapted for the stage by Christopher Sergel and for the screen by Horton Foote
"Any dent that any theater can make in the world is no doubt small, but theater people who on that account give up the effort as hopeless are generally agreeing to make no dent at all."
Eric Bentley (1916 - ) critic, playwright, singer, editor and translator
"Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made."
George F. Burns ( 1896-1996) comedian
“If the comic can berate and finally blow the bully out of the water,“he has hitched himself to an identifiable human purpose.”
Jerry Lewis (1926 - ) comedian and actor,
"For an actress to be a success, she must have the face of Venus, the brains of a Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of a Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros."
Ethel Barrymore (1878 - 1959) actress
"It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic."
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British prime minister
A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car. "
Kenneth Tynan (1927 - 1980) theater critic
"More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic."
Uta Hagen (1919 - 2004) actress and teacher
"I guess in the old days we just got by on glamor. Hollywood sold its stars on good looks and personality buildups. We weren't really actresses in the true sense. We were just big names--the products of a good publicity department". --Ann Sothern (in 1970s)
"Through my singing and acting and speaking, I want to make freedom ring. Maybe I can touch people's hearts better than I can their minds, with the common struggle of the common man."
Paul Robeson (1898-1976) singer, actor, civil rights activist
"The play is done; the curtain drops,
Slow falling to the prompter's bell
A moment yet the actor stops
And looks around to say farewell.
It is an irksome word and task:
And when he's laughed and said his say
He shows, as he removes the mask,
A face that's anything but gay."
William Thackeray (1811-1863) novelist
