Jessica Lange Quotes:

The natural state of motherhood is unselfishness. When you become a mother, you are no longer the center of your own universe. You relinquish that position to your children.

Topics: Mom, Mother, Children, Mother And Child, Mother Child

When you learn not to want things so badly, life comes to you.

Topics: Life, Want

Acceptance and tolerance and forgiveness, those are life-altering lessons.

Topics: Life Lesson, Acceptance, Tolerance

One of the things I love about acting is that it reveals a certain something about yourself, but it doesn't reveal your own personal story.

Topics: Love Yourself, Acting, Stories, Personal Stories

I am tortured when I am away from my family, from my children. I am horribly guilt-ridden.

Topics: Family, Children, Guilt

I regret those times when I've chosen the dark side. I've wasted enough time not being happy.

Topics: Regret, Dark, Sides

For me, nothing has ever taken precedence over being a mother and having a family and a home.

Topics: Family, Mother, Taken, Precedence

To work with a director that has emotional commitment and passion toward the characters, and the piece, and the experiences, it only enriches your work.

Topics: Passion, Character, Commitment

Allow the diversity to exist. There is nothing wrong with it. Hell, we put up with the religious right-we can put up with transgendered human beings.

Topics: Religious, Diversity, Hell

Be present. I would encourage you with all my heart just to be present. Be present and open to the moment that is unfolding before you. Because, ultimately, your life is made up of moments. So don't miss them by being lost in the past or anticipating the future.

Topics: Inspiring, Graduation, Heart, Anticipating The Future

I've worked with some teachers and coaches over the years, but I didn't really study theater or technique or voice or any of that stuff extensively.

Topics: Teacher, Voice, Years

It was easier to do Shakespeare than a lot of modern movie scripts that are so poorly written.

Topics: Scripts, Modern, Easier

I've never been a sunny personality. I've never been outgoing. I'm a solitary person.

Topics: Personality, Sunny, Outgoing

There was that feminist myth that we can do everything. I don't think you can.

Topics: Thinking, Feminist, Myth

To work on the actual location I think is great. This thing of going to Canada and pretending you're in New York, it's terrible.

Topics: New York, Thinking, Canada

TV is sort of the only way to go for an actress my age to make a decent salary; with independent films, you just can't.

Topics: Independent, Age, Way

When I am home for like a two-year stretch, I get antsy, because I want to work.

Topics: Home, Years, Two

Once I started on 'Frances' I discovered it was literally a bottomless well. It devastated me to maintain that for eighteen weeks, to be immersed in this state of rage for twelve to eighteen hours a day. It spilled all over, into other areas of my life.

Topics: France, Twelve, Rage, Devastated

Because Shakespeare's language is so expansive, we're under this misconception that it's difficult. But I discovered that it's easy because it's so brilliantly written. The words are perfect, and the language is intelligent and very emotional.

Topics: Emotional, Intelligent, Perfect

I have a life that's just been a well of loneliness.

source: - "TCM Film Fest: Shirley MacLaine Serves Up Barbs and Valentines" by Chris Willman, www.hollywoodreporter.com. March 30, 2015.

Topics: Loneliness, Wells

Moments of pure happiness come upon you unexpectedly. Don't be too preoccupied to experience them.

Topics: Moments, Pure Happiness

It's easy to judge, to think we know for certain the right thing to do. Sometimes, it just isn't so clear.

Topics: Thinking, Judging, Decision, Easy To Judge

I've been thinking a lot about next year, which will be the first time in 25 years that I don't have a child at home.

Topics: Children, Home, Thinking

I worked on my voice for Sweet Dreams, but only to match my speaking voice to Patsy's actual singing voice. That was my way into that character.

Topics: Dream, Sweet, Character

Families survive, one way or another. You have a tie, a connection that exists long after death, through many lifetimes.

Topics: Family, Death, Ties

If I had to start over, I'd pursue photography - probably to the exclusion of acting.

Topics: Photography, Starting Over, Acting

I've got nothing left to lose at this point. The work I've done is out there.

Topics: Done

This idea of selfishness as a virtue, as opposed to generosity: That, to me, is unnatural.

Topics: Ideas, Generosity, Selfishness

There are no explanations, there are no answers.

Topics: Answers, Explanation

Sometimes parts just come along when it's the perfect time for you to do them.

Topics: Perfect, Sometimes

Photography was a blessing because it filled my time.

Topics: Photography, Blessing, Filled

To my mind the election was stolen by George Bush and we have been suffering ever since under this man's leadership.

Topics: Leadership, Men, Mind

I never felt like I belonged in Minnesota when I was growing up there. That's why I was out the door as soon as I turned 18.

Topics: Growing Up, Doors, Growing

I love being a mother. I loved being a daughter, a sister, a wife. I love being a woman with men. I love having given birth.

Topics: Daughter, Mother, Men, I Love Being A Mother

I like playing characters who are out there on the edge, where they can explode at any moment or fall off the precipice.

Topics: Fall, Character, Moments

I have made decisions based from purely an actor's point of view.

Topics: Views, Decision, Actors

At a certain age, death becomes familiar to you-or a loss becomes familiar-the tragedies that are more commonplace in life.

Topics: Loss, Tragedy, Corny, Commonplace

All through life I've harbored anger rather than expressed it at the moment.

source: - "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

Topics: Anger, Moments

I have been a waitress, and I was a damn fine waitress too, let me tell you.

Topics: Waitress, Fine, Let Me

There can be no better measure of our governance than the way we treat our children, and no greater failing on our part than to allow them to be subjected to violence, abuse or exploitation.

Topics: Children, Abuse, Way, Abused Children

Yes, and you should question your government.

Topics: Government, Politics, Should

I like to work in costumes, makeup, and hair that allow me tremendous freedom.

Topics: Makeup, Hair, Costumes

I never just slide through anything. I explore everything to the fullest, whether good or bad.

Topics: Slides

If Ive got a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt, thats usually a good day for me.

Topics: Good Day, Jeans, Pairs

I have always followed the most passionate course.

Topics: Passionate

It is an embarrassing time to be an American. It really is. It's humiliating.

Topics: Embarrassing, Humiliating

...we must remain hopeful that for our children and our children's children, that we are not a warring nation, but we will embrace and practice true compassion and honor the ideals of peace and freedom, and we will not give up.

Topics: Peace, Children, Giving Up

What I love about photography, and it's the same thing I love about acting, really, is that it forces you, like, right into the moment, where you can't be distracted, where you can't be, like, thinking about other things or ahead of yourself or behind yourself.

source: - "Actress Jessica Lange". "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. October 8, 2013.

Topics: Photography, Thinking, Acting

In families there is always the mythology. My father died when my kids were quite young still, and yet they still tell his stories. That is how a person lives on.

Topics: Children, Father, Kids, Father Died

It comes down to something really simple: Can I visualize myself playing those scenes? If that happens, then I know that I will probably end up doing it.

Topics: Simple, Scene, Ends

So much of my sense of who I am is tied to mothering. When they left home, I fell into a huge, empty, black hole. Your children are grown and your career has slowed down - all the stuff that took up so much attention is gone, and you're left with expansive time and space.

Topics: Children, Home, Who I Am, Tied

Sometimes the odds are against you-the director doesn't know what the hell he's doing, or something falls apart in the production, or you're working with an actor who's just unbearable.

Topics: Fall, Odds, Unbearable

Successful model? That's a myth. The year I modeled was the most painful year of my life. Editors would always talk to you in the third person as though you were merely a piece of merchandise.

Topics: Successful, Editors, Years, Merchandise

The worst is when I talk myself into something. Sometimes you take things because you want to work with a certain actor, or you want to work with a director, even if the script or the part's not that great.

Topics: Directors, Actors, Want

There's something magical still about it when I get in a darkroom, and you've shot a roll of film and you develop it and you look at your negatives, and there's, like, imagery there. That always stuns me.

Topics: Looks, Film, Shots, Darkroom

I never think of the future. I never imagine what comes next.

Topics: Thinking, Next, Imagine

The only place I've felt was really my home is my cabin up north. There's something in the water there that connects me to that place. There's also this sense of isolation and loneliness about it that I've never been able to shake.

Topics: Loneliness, Home, Water, Isolation And Loneliness, Up North

I do love acting. But to work as a photojournalist would have been extraordinary.

Topics: Acting, Photojournalists, Extraordinary

My one big regret was that there were no scenes that I could play with Eva Marie Saint. I hounded them. I said figure out some way, I just want to play a scene with this woman. But there was no way to make it work.

Topics: Regret, Play, Saint

Box office success has never meant anything. I couldn't get a film made if I paid for it myself. So I'm not 'box office' and never have been, and that's never entered into my kind of mind set.

Topics: Office, Mind, Kind, Mind Set, Box Office

For me, acting was always a way to explore emotions - to dip into the well and really try to reach rock bottom down there. That was the most exciting part of it. I hadn't found anything that really allowed me to do that until I came upon acting.

source: - Interview with Alan Cumming, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 8, 2013.

Topics: Rocks, Acting, Trying

What can I say? I hate Bush; I despise him and his entire administration, everything he represents and everything he has tried to do, not only internationally, which is horrific, but domestically as well. In my country the atmosphere is poisoned. Unbreathable for those of us who are not on the right. So thank you for inviting me to this festival and allowing me to leave there for a few days.

Topics: Country, Hate, Atmosphere, Horrific

I had never done Shakespeare before, but I don't think you can be an actor and not do it. There were moments when I thought, I'm just not going to be able to pull this off.

Topics: Thinking, Actors, Done

I never shot on sets, but if I was traveling somewhere or on location, I would always have my camera, and I'd always be - it's that kind of fly on the wall approach to photography, though. I don't engage the subject. I like to sneak around, skulk about in the dark.

Topics: Photography, Wall, Dark

If I didn't have children I'd be a much better actress. I wouldn't be so distracted. I could pour 100 percent of my energies into it, to promote the investigation which acting is.

Topics: Children, Acting, Energy

To stay interested in acting, I have to keep trying stuff I've never done before.

Topics: Trying, Acting, Done

Don't be absent from your own life.

source: - "16 Commencement Speeches That'll Change Your Views About Work, Love, and Money" by Jillian Kramer, www.glamour.com.

Topics: Absent

I am coming to the end of acting. I have a list: another stage production, maybe one or two more movies, one more season of American Horror Story. . . and then that is it for me. Because I think that's enough. I want to go out with a bang. . . or should I say, a scare?

Topics: Thinking, Two, Acting, American Horror Story

I could be making a lot more money now if I had chosen a different kind of movie, but none of that matters to me... I've done the parts I wanted to do.

Topics: Different, Done, Matter

Everything is transient. Everything is constantly changing. The only thing we have is now.

Topics: Change, Transient

Moments of pure happiness...come upon you unexpectedly. Don't be too preoccupied to experience them.

source: - Jessica Lange's Commencement Address at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, www.sarahlawrence.edu. June 28, 2008.

Topics: Moments, Pure Happiness, Pure

I love men. I've always been drawn to poets, artists, and madmen. Sometimes all three in one

Topics: Artist, Men, Three, Three In One

I want to live my life with no goals anymore, but just completely free, like I did when I was younger.

source: - Interview with Alan Cumming, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 8, 2013.

Topics: Goal, Want, Living My Life

American Horror Story re-energized me; it re-energized my career. There’s no shame in recognizing that. It’s exposed me to a whole new generation, which is a little strange. I’m not used to young people thinking I’m cool.

Topics: Thinking, Horror Stories, Careers, American Horror Story

As an actor, you have to have trust and believe that somebody is taking care of you or watching your back. With a part like this, especially with where we're going with it, I can't pull any punches. I can't do it halfway, especially when you're dealing with madness and this descent into madness.

source: - "Jessica Lange Talks AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM, Her Psychological Work on the Show, Her Characters in Each Season and Returning for Season 3". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. December 12, 2012.

Topics: Believe, Care, Actors, Trust And Believe

That's always been like a fascination to me - watching my family, three sisters and a brother and all growing up basically in the same situation and each one being so totally different and going on to completely different areas and directions. But for me to go into psychoanalysis really steadily, would be putting too much energy into trying to figure out why I am the way I am... Basically this is how I am and it's alright and I don't want to know why I'm this way.

source: - "New Again: Jessica Lange". Interview with Bob Colacello, Andy Warhol, Robert Hayes, www.interviewmagazine.com. June 29, 2016.

Topics: Brother, Growing Up, Trying, Three Sisters, I Am The Way I Am

I worked on my voice for 'Sweet Dreams' but only to match my speaking voice to Patsy's actual singing voice. That was my way into that character.

source: - Interview with Ann Roth, April 2006.

Topics: Dream, Sweet, Character, Sweet Dreams

At certain times you really feel as though you have to do something.

source: - "New Again: Jessica Lange". Interview with Bob Colacello, Andy Warhol, Robert Hayes, www.interviewmagazine.com. June 29, 2016.

Topics: Certain, Feels

Digital doesn't interest me. It's too many steps removed from the actual tactile thing. I still read books. I don't read online.

source: - Source: www.pbs.org

Topics: Book, Digital, Steps

It took Sydney Pollack a long time to get me to do Tootsie. I asked myself if I wanted to play some frothy, ditzy character after I had just done Frances. Obviously, I'm thrilled that I did.

Topics: Character, Play, Long, Ditzy

The thing with psychoanalysis is I know basically what happened in my childhood. I know where things went wrong and I know what my mother said at one point and what my father said at one point.

source: - "New Again: Jessica Lange". Interview with Bob Colacello, Andy Warhol, Robert Hayes, www.interviewmagazine.com. June 29, 2016.

Topics: Mother, Father, Childhood

There was a period of time when I was very political, when I was at the university. It was like the late '60s, early '70s and I was a dissident like everybody else I guess. Now I follow it but there's nothing that really grabs me. The most fascinating thing to me right now is China.

source: - "New Again: Jessica Lange". Interview with Bob Colacello, Andy Warhol, Robert Hayes, www.interviewmagazine.com. June 29, 2016.

Topics: Political, China, Periods

Usually, you get a script and you have the whole story. All the acts are there, for a play. You know what happens in the first, second and third acts, and you know how it starts, where you go and where it finishes. [With American Horror Story: Asylum], it's a whole new experience. I don't know where it's going, and I don't know what's going to happen next. It's been an interesting way to work. It's made me work in a much more fluid, braver way, just taking every chance that comes along.

source: - "Jessica Lange Talks AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM, Her Psychological Work on the Show, Her Characters in Each Season and Returning for Season 3". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. December 12, 2012.

Topics: New Experiences, Horror Stories, Play, Interesting Ways, American Horror Story

I take a jazz class and I also take just a regular exercise class with a man who gives me acupressure treatments. It's just stretching and elongating the muscles.

source: - "New Again: Jessica Lange". Interview with Bob Colacello, Andy Warhol, Robert Hayes, www.interviewmagazine.com. June 29, 2016.

Topics: Exercise, Men, Class, Regular Exercise

I had a big family - two older sisters and a younger brother. My family was like moving around a lot so I lived in a lot of small towns. My father was very restless.

source: - "New Again: Jessica Lange". Interview with Bob Colacello, Andy Warhol, Robert Hayes, www.interviewmagazine.com. June 29, 2016.

Topics: Brother, Father, Moving, Older Sister, Younger Brother

It [military action on Iraq] makes me feel ashamed to come from the United States. It is humiliating.

Topics: Military, Iraq, United States, Military Action

When you think about it there's never really been a realistic exposition of Hollywood, I mean - from the inside - showing Hollywood what it can do, what it has done, to people.

source: - "New Again: Jessica Lange". Interview with Bob Colacello, Andy Warhol, Robert Hayes, www.interviewmagazine.com. June 29, 2016.

Topics: Mean, Thinking, People

I went to the University of Minnesota to study art. I left the university to come to New York and live in Soho. I got involved with like a small kind of like experimental theater-mime company and we discovered that Étienne Decroux, a great mime, was still teaching in Paris so I went to study with him for several years.

source: - "New Again: Jessica Lange". Interview with Bob Colacello, Andy Warhol, Robert Hayes, www.interviewmagazine.com. June 29, 2016.

Topics: Art, New York, Teaching, Soho, Mime