InspiringQuotes

Audra McDonald Quotes:

Audra McDonald quotes

Ocupation: Actress

Life: b. July 3, 1970

Birthday: July 3

famous quotes

And I found the theater, and I found my home.

Topics: Home, Theater, Found

quote whatever is the scariest is almost always what i end up choosing audra mcdonald Quotes

I want to thank all the shoulders of the strong and brave and courageous women that I am standing on,

source: - "Billie Holiday: A Singer Beyond Our Understanding". www.npr.org. April 7, 2015.

Topics: Strong, Brave, Want, Courageous Women

The authentic Gullah dialect is actually very clipped, and so it would sound almost Jamaican and be very odd to an American audience's ears. It's not the typical Southern dialect that we're used to.

source: - "Audra McDonald: Shaping 'Bess' On Broadway". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. May 15, 2012.

Topics: Southern, Dialect, Ears, Jamaicans

Whatever is the scariest is almost always what I end up choosing.

source: - Source: www.achievement.org

Topics: Ends

Some sort of creativity is within everybody; I think that's just a part of the human spirit. I think there's no human being on earth who is not creative in some way, because I think it's just a part of our genetic makeup.

source: - Source: www.achievement.org

Topics: Creativity, Thinking, Makeup

I was a little girl with a pot belly and Afro puffs, hyperactive and overdramatic, and I found the theater and I found my home.

source: - "Audra McDonald Goes Back Home With New Album". "Tell Me More" with Michel Martin, www.npr.org. May 30, 2013.

Topics: Home, Theater, Found

I'm still an artist who's searching, trying to evolve, an artist who - nine times out of ten - is dissatisfied with her work, and beats herself, and goes out there and tries again and again, and falls on her face and looks for new challenges.

source: - Source: www.achievement.org

Topics: Fall, Artist, Challenges

Rise above the way society is going to see you and society is going to see you at the absolutely bottom of the totem pole because not only are you female, you are Black. Never believe it and never give into that, that that's where you live or that's who you are.

source: - Source: www.ebony.com

Topics: Believe, Giving, Black

For me, I am constantly forcing myself to evolve, because, I think, to stagnate creatively - there's a certain death that happens with that. Because if you're not moving forward and you're not evolving, you're devolving, and I don't want to go backwards. I want to be better at what I do tomorrow than I am today. I don't want to be worse.

source: - Source: www.achievement.org

Topics: Moving, Thinking, Want, Certain Death

I guess what I know now that I definitely didn't know as a child, is that being truest to yourself is the greatest weapon in the war to achieve. That sounds really negative, but in conquering or achieving something. I think, as a child, I thought I had to be somebody else.

Topics: Children, War, Thinking

You feel the communion of the collective consciousness in that moment when you're on stage doing something and the audience is absolutely with you. And the audience becomes a collective entity as well. They come in from separate places and socio-economic backgrounds, and places across the world and days that they've had, and then they come together and they become one collective thing, and experience something in a collective way.

source: - Source: www.achievement.org

Topics: Together, Way, World, Collective Consciousness

Theater doesn't bring money in general. That's not why you do it. If you go into theater for money then you've really gone into the wrong business.

Topics: Gone, Theater, Ifs

...I tried to kill myself. It was a feeble attempt, but I did. And I got put in a mental hospital for a month, and I got myself straight and worked on my mental health...it's nothing that I hide. It's nothing to be proud of or to be ashamed of. It's part of my life, you know? And I'm still here!

Topics: Wisdom, Health, Reality

The only thing I've ever wanted to do in my entire life is to be on Broadway.

source: - "The 58th Annual Tony Awards". TV Special, www.imdb.com. June 06, 2004.

Topics: Broadway, Life Is, Wanted

Pedigree matters: if you break your shoulder trying to open a door, it's much harder to play the game once you get in the room.

Topics: Doors, Games, Play, Pedigree

I'm addicted to those moments when you're on stage and the audience is so quiet you could hear a pin drop and you realize that you're in communion. That's an incredible experience. That's a cosmic experience, as far as I'm concerned, without getting way out there.

Topics: Way, Quiet, Realizing

In the performing arts you have to have thick, thick, thick skin, because of all the rejection you face on a daily basis, and the fact that work never lasts for very long. But you need thin, thin, thin skin in order to access all of your emotions and your creativity so that you can express it. You can't be dead inside. Otherwise you've got nothing to give. So it's a paradox, that we have to exist in both planes in order to do what we do.

source: - Source: www.achievement.org

Topics: Art, Creativity, Order, Thick Skin, Performing Arts

Every human being has a dream. I think what's special about the American Dream is that it implies, given everything that's happened with the history of America, that there is the opportunity to make your dream come true. So I think America signifies opportunity.

source: - Source: www.achievement.org

Topics: Dream, Thinking, Opportunity

I played Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music and everybody's like, "Well she wouldn't have been this and that, she shouldn't be playing it." Well I'm going to do it and I did it. I've been warned my entire life and I've persisted and that's what I hope my children will do as well.

source: - Source: www.ebony.com

Topics: Mother, Children, My Children, Sound Of Music

I'm taking opportunities as they come; I really am. Not to get too sort of mystical, but I believe in fate. I believe when roles are presented to me in my life they're for a very specific reason, something for me to learn. And it's coming at the right time.

source: - Source: www.elle.com

Topics: Believe, Fate, Opportunity

I think in the end there is one ultimate goal with all my careers, and that is, as a performing artist, you want to explore the deepest, most truthful way to express a point of view, or whatever the character is thinking, or whatever emotion you're trying to convey. I think with the different media it's just about what muscles you use to express that.

Topics: Character, Thinking, Artist, Performing Artist, Performing Arts

...and if you hear something you know, please sing along. No wait - I take that back - you can't sing along - this is about me now - this is my show.

Topics: Waiting, Shows, Please

I consider myself to be a feminist. My hope and goal is that I'm going to raise two very strong independent women that won't need anybody, unless they chose that. I want them to be mistresses of their own destiny. But I don't judge people on the other end of that spectrum either.

source: - Source: www.ebony.com

Topics: Strong, Independent, Destiny

I think a part of evolution is the desire to know yourself, and know the world you live in, and discover everything you can about the world you live in. That world can be the microcosm of your own emotions, or a society, or the cosmos. There's this constant desire for knowledge.

source: - Source: www.achievement.org

Topics: Thinking, Desire, Cosmos, Desire For Knowledge

Music was all over my house, and all over literally my genetic house, and my house in the literal sense. So I kind of couldn't avoid it.

source: - Source: www.achievement.org

Topics: House, Kind, Literal

I think for a lot of people that are in performing arts, it's easy to fall into the trap of starting to confuse what's real life and what's not, because to your body it's all real.

source: - Source: www.achievement.org

Topics: Art, Real, Fall, Performing Arts

I've had to play characters who I absolutely disagree with, as far as their politics, as far as their religion, and their stance on certain social issues, I completely disagree with them. But I have to go in and find who they are and get to their core, into their truth, and have absolute faith and believe in that, in order to portray it. So you have to walk in a lot of different shoes, in that you can't help but have your mind open as a result of that.

source: - Source: www.achievement.org

Topics: Believe, Character, Shoes

I think it comes down to the type of personality that the performing arts seem to attract. And that's outgoing, very sensitive - sometimes incredibly insecure - people, that for some reason need a lot of validation. They have a lot that they have to get out, and they choose one of the hardest professions in the world in which to exist, being as sensitive as you need to be.

Topics: Insecure People, Performing Arts, Outgoing

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