Marian Seldes Quotes

#1. My grandmother always used to say, "If you know your past and you know where you have to go, why do you rehearse?" I always remember this and it's true. You have to start each day again-you can't repeat what you did.

Marian Seldes

#2. If I had a religious belief, I would want it to be as strong as my belief in the theater.

Marian Seldes

#3. People say, 'How can you stay in a play for a long time?' I say, 'The audience is never the same.'

Marian Seldes

#4. There's no trick of teaching acting. Either someone wants to do it and is gifted, or not.

Marian Seldes

#5. I try to find humor in everything I do, because I think all great plays - even great tragedies - have enormous humor in them.

Marian Seldes

#6. Theatre is where I am confident and happy.

Marian Seldes

#7. All I've done is live my life in the theater and loved it.

Marian Seldes

#8. I have had a career in which, almost without exception, every single person I've worked with has helped me.

Marian Seldes

#9. I've been, for want of a better phrase, a supporting actress so much of my life.

Marian Seldes

#10. I grew up in a house where language was appreciated and cared about. I'm sure that, although I wasn't aware of it at the time, it must have made an impression on me.

Marian Seldes

#11. An actress spends a lifetime observing people. You build up a mental library. No, not a library. Make that a repository.

Marian Seldes

#12. Acting takes so much energy.

Marian Seldes

#13. I think of myself as only being an actress when I'm acting, but my friends will say I act all the time.

Marian Seldes

#14. I would hate to think of the theatre world without critics. Without them, we'd not have the record of each season.

Marian Seldes

#15. If you're unhappy in a relationship, I think you just don't trust yourself for getting into another one.

Marian Seldes

#16. I had never heard anyone play like Benny Goodman and had never seen anyone like him on the stage. I realize now that what impressed me and stayed with me in memory was - the sounds he made. He played so purely. The music seemed to come from him, not just the instrument he played with such mastery.

Marian Seldes

#17. I'm not a good tourist. I don't like walking around and looking at things. I like being in a city and working and finding out how other people live.

Marian Seldes

#18. The kind of acting I love is when you watch and you discover what you think perhaps you weren't supposed to see: the chink in the armor.

Marian Seldes

#19. I love being with someone, taking care of someone.

Marian Seldes

#20. I always think of myself as an 18-year-old beginning my career, all the time.

Marian Seldes

#21. I'm fairly obedient. I do what I'm told.

Marian Seldes

#22. I think the first time I was ever really conscious of the difference between people's voices was that my mother's voice was so soft and gentle and her pronunciation was so perfect.

Marian Seldes

#23. How do people who live utterly alone survive? There are so many things that won't open. I've got a few dresses in New York, and I can somehow get them on, but I can't get them off.

Marian Seldes

#24. I almost never go to the theatre without seeing someone I've taught or known at Juilliard.

Marian Seldes

#25. When I began to act, I was about 6 years old. Everything you learned, every period of history you studied, you did a play about it.

Marian Seldes

#26. I know I'm funny, because I'm eccentric, I'm odd. I'm not what you expect.

Marian Seldes

#27. Unfortunately, there are mental invalids of every age who exist on other people's terms. It's lazy for older persons to let others make up their minds for them. People have to overcome that.

Marian Seldes

#28. I've never been obsessed by how I looked. In fact, I would rather have looked more ordinary so I could play more parts more truthfully.

Marian Seldes