Best 70 quotes of Jessica Lange on MyQuotes

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Photography was a blessing because it filled my time.

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.

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.

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.