Best 98 quotes of Michelle Pfeiffer on MyQuotes

Acting is kind of brutal.

Acting's an odd profession for a young person; it's so extreme. You work, and the conditions are tough and the process is so immersive, and then it stops, and then there's nothing. So you have to find ways of making you feel productive when you're not actually producing anything. For a young person, that's really challenging.

Actually, I think that turning 29 was more difficult, because once I turned 29, I anticipated 30 for the whole year, so by the time 30 came around it really wasn't that bad.

And I'm a really happy person, I enjoy life. I think you see that on people. I think there's nothing more aging than misery.

Being a parent is the hardest thing in the world... the psychological toll it takes on you because these lives are in your hands. I take it very seriously.

Being from Orange County is in a lot ways very much like being from the Midwest.

De Niro is a classic example of somebody who is iconic and who sort of effortlessly puts actors at ease the moment you meet him. I think it's also just something that he innately does with people.

Even though I don't feel I need approval, it's still important to me to give a good performance. I'm hard on myself.

Everybody is vulnerable to being in relationships where they get fooled. I'm no different. It's just human nature.

Every time I set up an interview, I say, "That's it, this is my last one. I'll do this because I committed to doing it, but I'm never doing another one.

For me, getting comfortable with being famous was hard - that whole side of it, the loss of anonymity, the loss of privacy. Giving up that part of your life and not having control of it.

Honestly, depending on what stage I'm at in my life, my opinion on plastic surgery changes. I've never been against plastic surgery - I'm against bad plastic surgery. I'm against the overuse of plastic surgery.

I act for free, but I demand a huge salary as compensation for all the annoyance of being a public personality. In that sense, I earn every dime I make.

I am basically very private, and I'm really nervous about doing publicity.

I can't imagine myself blowing up supermarkets!

I'd been taking singing lessons and I had taken dance, because I loved to dance, but I had never considered myself a professional at all.

I decided I needed something that I could feel as passionate about as acting, and something in which I could completely lose myself. I started painting, and I'm still doing it.

I do find comedy difficult. I don't know why. Maybe I think about it too much. There's a tremendous amount of pressure to be funny.

I don't believe men want women to have grotesque plastic surgery or be undernourished and bony. All the plastic surgery in the world can't stop you getting older.

I don't know if it's naivete or just narcissism, but I start out with this notion that I can do anything. It's not until I get into it that I realize what I've thrown myself into, and then I will do anything not to humiliate myself. And that, I think, is the secret to my success.

I don't think it's easy for women to watch themselves age. And I think it's obviously doubly hard to grow older when you are a public figure and you constantly have to see your image all the time, and people are constantly pointing it out.

I do portraits. I usually do live models in a class environment, but I've been painting at home more. I really love the human form, and I love faces. I've tried to do landscapes a few times.

I do sometimes feel like the paparazzi are really what ran me out of L.A. They're just giving everyone a bad name.

I do think that, at one time, being an actress was the equivalent almost of being a prostitute. It garnered roughly the same respect. That's changed a lot, thank goodness.

I even had breasts that had mechanisms that could make them droop. It was a shock in the beginning. Talk about special effects!

I feel less pressure to dress youthfully. I'm 50 and everyone knows I'm 50 - who are you kidding? Jeans are my uniform. I have about 15 pairs.

If I do a move I don't like, I don't want to get so upset with myself.

I find the less you focus on your flaws, the better off you are. Be yourself and be glad of who you are.

If you're working on something that isn't very demanding, isn't very fulfilling, then you have all this energy to burn, and you can go crazy.

If you think hitting 40 is liberating, wait until you hit 50; and I was surprised at how liberating it was. The anticipation of something is always much worse than the reality.

I guess I do a really good job at covering.

I know that I want to wait for something that I really feel great about.

I like being prepared. When things are going on and I have to learn my lines at the last minute, I'm never quite secure enough to allow it to be spontaneous. So the more prepared I am, the more I'm able to kind of let it go . . .

I liked getting up at 4 in the morning, driving on the freeway, and going in and stocking shelves and laughing with the stock clerks.

I like understanding what's underneath, what's really motivating people. When I was younger, I wanted to be a psychiatrist, so I think it has to do with that.

I look like a duck. It's the way my mouth curls up, or my nose tilts up. I should have played Howard the Duck.

I'm afraid to be alone, I'm afraid not to be alone. I'm afraid of what I am, what I'm not, what I might become, what I might never become. I don't want to stay at my job for the rest of my life, but I'm afraid to leave. And I'm just tired, you know? I'm just so tired of being afraid.

I'm always amazed at how consistent people find me and my behavior, when in fact I do feel different all the time.

I'm a perfectionist, so I can drive myself mad - and other people, too. At the same time, I think that's one of the reasons I'm successful. Because I really care about what I do.

I'm a Taurus. To the bone.

I relax by taking my bicycle apart and putting it back together again.

I said, going into acting, 'I'm never moving to L.A.,' because it scared me. But there was no way you could build an acting career in Orange County.

I say really stupid things sometimes. When I go back and watch some of my old interviews from when I was younger, I just cringe.

I still look like a duck.

I think all actors have a sadomasochistic streak, because acting is kind of brutal, you know.

I think that I am a compulsive person, but now I'm learning to put those compulsions into healthy things.

I think there is a major difference between actors and actresses. All of the men I've worked with have been really difficult, whereas the women have always been extremely cooperative. I began thinking about that, and I think it comes down to a question of comfort with vanity.

It's fun to explore areas that are taboo that you're not allowed to in real life as an actor.

It's fun to kick ass and show that other dark side of yourself as well.

It's harder to live the way I live. There are certain places I like to shop and eat where I simply don't go. The paparazzi follow you.