Quotes By Jessica Lange

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

There are no explanations, there are no answers.

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.

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.

We are not the originators of the story. I think it's actually the opposite when you're an actor. You're telling somebody else's story.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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