Best 98 quotes of William H. Macy on MyQuotes

I've got two little girls, I'm not scared about sex. I'll teach them, it's not going to kill them. But what could kill them is violence. Guns, drinking and driving, these are the real dangers in our society.

I've studied Stanislavsky, and Mamet taught Stanislavsky, and I studied with Sanford Meisner. But the part of the method that I think is the most fruitful is the method of physical actions. It all comes down to your objective: Nothing else counts except what you want. How you feel will take care of itself.

I've written a lot of scripts that someone else directed, and it's absolutely vital that, if I'm gonna act in it, then I have to take off the writer hat and let the director direct.

I was a dog in a past life. Really. I'll be walking down the street and dogs will do a sort of double take. Like, Hey, I know him.

Just learn the whole script before you start shooting. That makes shooting a joy. Even if they rewrite, it's easy.

Making a mistake means overshooting a scene, shooting too many takes, for instance. Long after you've got it, you just keep shooting.

Many times, I like to read the script before I even know who they want me to play, so I can read it and really enjoy it as an audience member. I think that's given me the ability to ferret out the really special scripts from all the rest.

Oh yeah, that's the Holy Grail, Pirates of the Caribbean. Johnny Depp, he's the real deal, isn't he? He doesn't get the girl, and he doesn't care.

One of the things I did early on in film was over-enunciate and talk too loud.

One's complete sentences are attempts, as often as not, to complete an incomplete self with words.

Our glorification of violence is ripping society apart. I don't want my children exposed to it.

Perhaps there is such a thing as obscene sex, but I know that violence is always obscene. So I don't get it, that you can disembowel a woman but you can't see her tits. Who made that up? That's sick!

Shameless is a rough show, and it’s not for everyone, but it’s also beautiful.

So many actors spend so much energy trying to remember the lines. It's so foolish. Guys are the worst.

Somebody's gotta stand up and say pubic hair is good, murder is bad. Sex is good, violence is bad.

Sometimes, directors are afraid to stop shooting, because the second you stop and say, "We got it," and move on, you'll never get another chance. And they're terrified to get in the cutting room and not be happy. So they just keep shooting.

So much of the violence in the movies is b.s. violence: A guy in the middle of a large city with 14 people lying on the ground that he's just killed with his superhuman powers, and there's not a cop to be found. Not a siren to be heard. No price to be paid. That's not true, and I don't like that sort of stuff.

Stephen King writes a lot of things that are really charming and quirky, and that are more ironic than horror.

Talk about putting your money where your mouth is. It's not right. Someone's gotta say it. They said it. I applaud them.

That red carpet has to be felt to be believed.

The actor has the advantage - or the liability - of knowing, "It's going to be my face up there on the frickin' screen, so I better keep my wits about me. Nobody's going to care that I was bad because I was not happy. They're only going to know I'm bad.

The best thing for an actor to do is take your attention off of how you feel about it, and put it on striving to obtain a particular objective. The happy result is that it brings out all this unexpected stuff in yourself.

The character and the actor in a long-running series slowly become one. I think there must be funny stories about actors who, in the pilot for a TV series, did some weird thing with their eyes, or some speech impediment or something, and the next thing you know, it's eight years later, and they're still doing that freaking gag.

The emotions will take care of themselves. You don't have to prod them along. As a matter of fact, you get in trouble when you prod them along.

The only reason an indie gets made is because someone has a burning passion to do it and won't take no for an answer, as opposed to a big film, which is like a train that starts rolling down the tracks and nothing can stop it.

The ratings system is so bogus and people know it. Fewer and fewer people care. The ratings board has sort of exposed itself. But my problem is, as a parent, there's this area of film that my daughters want to see. They're not my kind of films, I don't want to go see them, but I really want to know whether my daughters can see them or not. The morality of what the ratings board is doing now escapes me. I don't get it.

There are statistics out that say 20 year olds, 18 years olds think about sex 90 percent of the time. They only don't think about sex when they're eating, and that's rare.

The reason they came up with the ratings board is that there are a lot of movies out there, and parents need some guidance. Not only for the kids, but for adults, as well. If you don't like to see a certain kind of film, there should be some rating, so that you know what you're getting into. But the present system doesn't work.

There will always be people with disabilities. And by my estimation, the scorecard for the way we take care of those who need our help the most, those at the very bottom of that safety net, is pretty dismal. And that has to change.

The roughest part is showing up. Once you throw yourself into the scene, it's just great fun to let it all go and not be self-conscious, and stop questioning whether you're sufficient.

The Spirit Awards are great too, they'll say anything because they're not televised. Another great drinking night.

To a certain extent. I'm a fan of rehearsal on the day [of the shoot], more than getting together a week beforehand.

Ultimately, a more experienced director realizes that you've got to stop sometime and just move on. They're braver about that.

We always want to see people strive and see the human spirit triumph against adversity. That's what it's all about because that's what we're doing. We're trying to triumph in our lives.

We, in America, are so screwed up when it comes to sex. That's all we can see.

We must admit that it is quite common that people do have affairs with their leading ladies and men.

We thought sex was free. Sex is not free. There's a price to be paid emotionally, physically, even legally. Sex isn't a casual thing. It's a huge thing.

What actors are good at doing is walking into a situation that should make you incredibly self-conscious and frightened and doing it anyway. That's the gig, pretending that you are comfortable.

When I was in New York, I was making a living. We had a summer house and a car that I could put in a garage. That's something for a stage actor.

When I watch a film I get swept away. I don't really watch the camera.

With an inexperienced director, a lot of times the days go on to 14, 15, 16 hours. It goes horrendously overtime. And because of the lack of money, they just keep you there, regardless of the hours.

Women, in order to recharge their batteries, gather in groups. They can recharge their batteries with their sisters. I tend to recharge my batteries in solitude, therefore the motorcycle trips. I need to be alone. As a matter of fact, I have to be careful. I could turn into a hermit.

Writers love to write those idiotic, long stage directions, and some of them worse than others. They have nothing to do with the movie. They're just jerking around.

Yeah, I made it. It sneaks up on you. You're some schmuck and you wake up one day and you go, Good God, I'm the cheese.

You can skim those stage directions and go right to the dialogue. You can almost read the movie in the same amount of time it will take you to see the movie.

You'd much rather act with a pal, someone you know really well. That way, you can cut all the niceties and go right to insulting each other.

You have to do whatever you can to limit the things that could make you feel insecure.

You should know the lines, be prepared, get sleep, and have the script analyzed so you're ready to rock and roll.