Told Quotes

Time and time again I was told that I would never make the film on time and never make it on budget. That kind of criticism tends to turn me into a great big motor of efficiency.

I grew up on a suburban street with lace curtains and dull neighbours, so I made up stories to tell my friend, in which they became serial killers and burglars. She told her mother, who then told mine.

When you've told someone that you've left them a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.

The songs are not necessarily autobiographical. A lot of songs are a combination of influences. It might be some part of my life, or something I've felt, or something somebody's told me. It all comes together.

The next day, I got a phone call from him and he told me to come and read for a movie called New Jack City. So I went over there and they told me I was gonna wear dreads and play a cop.

When I told my mother that I wanted to be an actress, she said, you can't live here and do that, and so I moved out. I was determined to prove her wrong because she was so sure that I was going to go astray. And that's the juice that kept me going.

When we were first offered a book deal prior to Avon's, they were trying to get us to change it from the first-person story into a how-to book, and they were offering us some decent money. My agent told me; "you should really consider this".

All my life, the naysayers have told me that I can't win because I'm a progressive... because I'm a woman... even because I'm a lesbian.

I once asked the most fabulous couple I know, Madonna and Guy Ritchie, how they kept things fresh despite having been married for almost seven months. 'It's a job, Al,' Guy told me. 'We work at it every day.'

You supposed to be able to do anything in this world. That's what Martin Luther King told me.

You go through all the emotions when you're told to move on.

I told jokes badly.

He told us he was going to take crime out of the streets. He did. He took it into the damn White House.

I showed my mom the movie then I told her the movie got bought and that it was gonna be shown in theatres and be on video. Everyone was really psyched about it. Everyone in my little town of hounds started to call me movie star.

I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You've got to just stand there and take it.

We didn't have a phone when I was a kid, and I was too shy to smash any public phones, and our town didn't have a pool hall either, so I had to hang out at the public library - and anyway, I told myself stories.

I happened to happened to land in a time, in the middle '60s, that without knowing it, and without being told by the history of theater - which we now see from a historical point of view was an explosive time.

I decided at age 9, but I was reinforced at age 13 when a teacher told me I had talent. I can't say she really motivated me because I already knew. I knew I had talent. I went to the Jewish community theater and got in plays there. Then I went for the movies.'

So when I was told to work, ten, twelve hours a day as an assistant pro, I didn't complain. It was normal.

I traveled the state of Florida for two years campaigning. I have never met a job creator who told me that they were waiting for the next tax increase before they started growing their business. I've never met a single job creator who's ever said to me I can't wait until government raises taxes again so I can go out and create a job.

I think the one thing that most stands out is that my father always did what he believed to be the right thing to do and he always told us that we had to go our own way even if he disagreed.

If I told people that I knew what I was doing, nobody would believe me, so why even try and fake it?

I think it has most to do with the way in which a story is told, whether it feels real either via the music of the telling or the 'honesty' of the story.

The moment my doctor told me, I went silent. My mum and dad were with me, then we all went to pieces. I was saying, No, I've got my flight to Sydney in two hours. I'm getting on a plane.

I don't like the trappings of stardom. I wear the shoes and the Dolce & Gabbana, because I'm told to. But I'm not trapped by it.

All through school, people told me I looked like Marcia Brady.

A wise governor told me a long time ago, political capital you don't get more of by keeping it. You get it by using it.

Chris Cooper once told me to never have any regrets. After Chris said that to me, I walk into every scene thinking, 'exhaust every possibility.' Once you get to a certain place, it's like you just deliver everything you've got. Don't have any regrets. It pops up in my mind over and over and over again.

Someone told me there was a publisher that could find a good home for my songs, but I didn't want to give up my pursuit of a career in the business as an artist.

A secret is not something unrevealed, but something told privately, in a whisper.