Top 100 Act Up Quotes
#1. And watched Alan Rickman act up a storm in Private Lives. Someone once said that this highly mannered actor had made a career out of being brilliant in roles where no brilliance was required.
Joe Queenan
#2. Kids always act up the most before they go to sleep.
Chris Rock
#3. He may have as strong a sense of what would be right, as you can have, without being so equal under particular circumstances to act up to it."
"Then, it would not be so strong a sense. If it failed to produce equal exertion, it could not be an equal conviction.
Jane Austen
#4. High school is a haunted house in April, when seniors act up because the end is near. Even those who hate school sometimes cling to the devil they know. And for the kids who love it, the goodbyes are hard to think about.
Nancy Gibbs
#5. The learned man who does not act up to his knowledge is like a patient who describes the qualities of a medicine without using it or like a hungry man who describes the taste of a food without eating it.
Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali
#6. Dignity of position adds to dignity of character, as well as to dignity of carriage. Give us a proud position, and we are impelled to act up to it.
Christian Nestell Bovee
#7. For me nonviolence is a creed. I must act up to it, whether I am alone or have companions.
Mahatma Gandhi
#8. Only imagine a man acting for one single day on the supposition that all his neighbors believe all that they profess, and act up to all that they believe!
Thomas B. Macaulay
#9. It's so weird to turn on a switch and be the role model for all women, for all African-Americans. That doesn't happen that easily. It just doesn't. And so I don't act up in public and I don't do anything weird - because my sisters are watching me, not because the world is watching me.
Gabourey Sidibe
#10. You'd think one day we'd learn. You don't get anything unless you fight for it, united and with visible numbers. If ACT UP taught us anything, it taught us that.
Larry Kramer
#11. The last time I did a movie that needed a horse, I said: 'If it moves, I'm out of here.' The worst thing is, they know when you're afraid and act up accordingly. I've had them run off on me. Horses I do not like.
Christopher Walken
#12. I came to N.Y.C. in 1988 and got very involved with Act Up. I also started making movies, including two very gay shorts, 'Vaudeville' and 'Lady.' It was the height of the AIDS epidemic, and New York City was both dying and very alive at the same time.
Ira Sachs
#13. We may not be a great power anymore, we may be into you for sixty-five trillion yuan-pegged, but we're not afraid to use our troops if our spades act up, so watch out, or we'll go fucking nuclear on your yellow asses if you try to cash in your chips.
Gary Shteyngart
#14. I wasn't involved in anything. I wasn't out - you know, I know I wasn't in ACT UP. I wasn't with Larry Kramer. I wasn't by his side. I wasn't saying what I should do, because, by all accounts, I was a drug addict and an alcoholic. And I was living in a complete bubble of self-absorption.
Elton John
#15. Graduates, I'm asking each of you, at some point, to act up, be misbehaved. Buck the system. Fight for what you believe in. This is the time to do it. You're the ones to do it. Your world, is like no other generation, you actually get to create the world that you can imagine.
Mark Ruffalo
#16. The Russians could have some (warheads) aimed at Japan, so if we act up they can destroy our economy.
P. J. O'Rourke
#18. I'm a slave to my dogs and go out with them almost every day. They are poorly behaved if they don't run. They really act up.
Amy Chua
#20. I've found the 90-10 rule to be pretty true: 90 percent of what I come up with and write down is kinda 'eh,' and then somehow, someway, 10 percent of it happens to work out really great in my act.
Hasan Minhaj
#21. Heckling is an act of cowardice. If you want to speak, get up in front of the microphone and speak, don't sit in the dark hiding. It's easy to hide and shout and waste people's time.
Billy Connolly
#22. I think boredom is the beginning of every authentic act. ( ... ) Boredom opens up the space, for new engagements. Without boredom, no creativity. If you are not bored, you just stupidly enjoy the situation in which you are.
Slavoj Zizek
#23. The offering up or cleaning up ego stuff is called purification. Purification is the act of letting go. This is done out of discriminative awareness. That is, you understand that you are an entity passing through a life in which the entire drama is an offering for your awakening.
Ram Dass
#24. The thought went through my mind that we should film ourselves in our sexual act, and project our frenzied copulation permanently onto the walls of the tea-room, as a lesson to wake up the boring people who drank tea here, and to show them what life was really all about.
Fiona Thrust
#25. We've suffered a 'Ponzification' of the economy in recent years, as bubbles have built up and then burst, and each time we act as though it's the first time.
Mitchell Zuckoff
#26. I don't care what I do - act, stand-up, write, direct - it doesn't matter as long as I'm being creative and it's good work.
Jeff Garlin
#27. It's very unique. When you have someone who's lucky to get a minute in a game come up and tell you how you can be better when he's two years older than you, it's such a selfless act. Everyone is willing to tell you how to get better.
Christopher Page
#28. Actually criminal sanctions that are given could be up to five years for violating the rules and regulations under the campaign finance reform. This is like the Alien and Sedition Act of years and years ago, decades ago.
Jay Alan Sekulow
#29. A rock star is expected to act like a mess, sound like a mess and look like a mess. People don't expect you to show up on time and be a professional. But when you're a pop star, you have to do all that, look perfect and be a role model.
Tove Lo
#30. When you've been locked up in a mental institution, people are going to ask questions. It was OK, because I didn't have to act perfect all the time.
Drew Barrymore
#31. I do think that stand-up comedy in general heavily favors masculinity and so I like to act a little feminine onstage.
Bo Burnham
#32. As to virtue ... it is an act of the will, a habit which increases the quantity, intensity and quality of life. It builds up, strengthens and vivifies personality.
Alexis Carrel
#33. People always think something's all true. I don't give a damn, except that I get bored when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am, I really do. But people never notice. People never notice anything.
J.D. Salinger
#34. Death can sneak up on you like a silent kitten, surprising you with its touch and you have a right to act surprised. Other times death stomps in the front door, unwanted and unannounced, and makes its noisy way to your seat on the sofa.
Hugh Elliot
#35. Always strive to find out what to do by thinking, without asking anybody. If you continually do this, you will soon act like a grown-up woman. For want of doing this, a very great number of grown-up people act like children.
George Bernard Shaw
#36. Give him a crowd, a gallery worthy of his best effort, and the old warrior will put on his show ... He isn't what he use to be. But pack the stands, turn up the lights, and who is it brings down the house with his act? The Babe!
John J. Kiernan
#37. In the first act get your principal character up a tree; in the second act, throw stones at him; in the third, get him down gracefully.
Anonymous
#38. It [Adam's act] cast off the authority of God, usurped his prerogative, and gave the mind up to the dominion of natural desire
John L. Dagg
#39. That's what violence was: emotion leaking out from consciousness into the physical world, linking up with the muscles of the arms and shoulders and diaphragm and, inevitably, the face. Stifle emotion during an act of violence and the face becomes a blank, unreadable mask.
Ryu Murakami
#40. No one is defined by a single act," Frederic said. "Whether it was years ago or weeks ago. We're all given chances to change, to make up for things we've done wrong. It's how we handle those opportunities that really matters.
Christopher Healy
#41. But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.
George Orwell
#42. Life. It's your birthday present. Open it up and play with it. Act like you like it. (The One who gave it to you is watching, after all. Don't want to hurt his feelings.) And if you don't like your life, CHANGE IT. It is all yours.
Jill Conner Browne
#43. I really enjoyed multicamera comedy. You film in front of a live audience, and it's kind of the best of both worlds. It's like doing a one-act play every week, but if you screw your lines up, you get to do it over.
Alan Ruck
#44. When you hold people up for ridicule, you have to take responsibility when other people act on it.
Jay Asher
#45. If you've got an idea, act on it up to its perfection.
Debasish Mridha
#46. Just because someone doesn't act or look unhappy doesn't mean their lives are perfect." He raises his eyebrows. "There's this method of dealing with things that involves keeping your chin up. Knowing whatever crap you're dealing with right now isn't going to last forever. All things pass.
Kelley York
#47. When I grew up I always wanted to act. Also, I wanted to be either a lawyer or a doctor. However, when I got to college and realized what those occupations entailed, I changed my mind real quick.
Tia Mowry
#48. When you're in a broken family and your role model is a violent male, boys grow up believing that's the way they're supposed to act. And girls think that's an accepted way men will treat them.
Jim Costa
#49. With Angela drawn to the hangdog look and Malachy lonely after three months in jail, there was bound to be a knee-trmbler.
A knee-trmbler is the act itself done up against a wall, man and woman up on their toes, straining so hard their knees tremble with the excitement that's in it.
Frank McCourt
#50. Your purpose is to act on the resources God gives you. If God gives you a bucket of fish, you have to distribute those fish. If you don't, they're going to rot, attract a bunch of flies, and start stinking up your soul.
Russell Simmons
#51. I always wanted to act, but I never thought it would be my profession. I thought that I'd end up doing other things, but that in the meantime I'd do plays.
Gael Garcia Bernal
#52. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.
Bryan White
#53. Then there was silence, the air like ice. Brittle-looking birch trees with black marks on their white bark, and some kind of small untidy evergreens rolled up like sleepy bears. The frozen lake not level but mounded along the shore, as if the waves had turned to ice in the act of falling.
Alice Munro
#54. I was born to fight devils and factions. It is my business to remove obstacles, to cut down thorns, to fill up quagmires and to open and make straight paths. If I must have some failing let me rather speak the truth with too great sincerity than once to act the hypocrite and conceal the truth.
Martin Luther
#55. I want to be still and small, and not have to man up or act like everything's okay, but the thing about living in a house where someone is sick is, it's like they have a monopoly on it. If one person is always needing things , then no one else is really allowed to.
Brenna Yovanoff
#56. I don't want to end up being a circus act, doing my most famous tricks when I'm 70.
Pharrell Williams
#57. Actually, as that first association continued, we got a little more legitimate. In those days, they asked Boy Scout troops to act as ushers during the football games. So we signed up and I went to many games in full Boy Scout uniform as an usher.
Daniel J. Evans
#58. Acting is a child's prerogative. Children are born to act. Usually, people grow up and out of it. Actors always seem to me to be people who never quite did grow out of it.
Joanne Woodward
#59. I've had many idols growing up. The inclination for idol worship comes naturally to me. Or it did, anyway. I think I've gotten over it. It came as naturally to me as wanting to act.
Kevin Corrigan
#60. The pilot himself was a good guy. He didn't act stuck up or high and mighty; you'd never know he was an officer.
Chris Kyle
#61. People who are much too sensitive to demand of cripples that they run races ask of the poor that they get up and act just like everyone else in the society.
Michael Harrington
#62. Comedians act every night on stage, so they have great performing chops. They especially know how to play themselves, which is how we set Teachers Lounge up.
Ted Alexandro
#63. I like him a lot.... I think I might love him. And it obviously isn't everything, but being the way I am has been a huge part of my life. It's easy to act like my past never happened, but it feels like I've put up this wall around my heart.
Meredith Russo
#64. Each mental act opens up a new dimension of actuality. In a manner of speaking, your slightest thought gives birth to worlds.
Jane Roberts
#65. The hero, it might be said, is called into being when perception of a need an the recognition of responsibility toward it are backed up by the will to act.
Mike Alsford
#66. Hustling sex for cash ain't dangerous if you learn the tricks quick, and that means puttin' yourself in a different mindset. Always scout for an exit for when you need it. Act confident and tough and you won't get hurt. Being scared or nervous will get you cut up and stuffed in a fuckin' bag.
Jon Michaelsen
#67. My inners are not organs. They're actually mechanics, so I have a hole in my back, wind me up like the movie 'Hugo,' and then just say, 'Act,' you know?
Gillian Jacobs
#68. He wouldn't give up on her. He was prepared to do anything, fight any battle. No matter if the act was forbidden or not, if he could get her back, he would humble himself, put himself in any kind of jeopardy or fight any battle to save her.
- Dimitri's thoughts
Christine Feehan
#69. The greatest act of faith some days is to simply get up and face another day.
Amy Gatliff
#70. I would also like to act, once in a while, but not get up every morning at 5:30 or six o'clock and pound into the studio and get home at 7:30 or eight o'clock at night, or act over and over and over every night on Broadway, either.
Jackie Cooper
#71. For women of my generation, it was the 'juggling act.' Jobs, marriage, children, homes, and aging parents were the balls we added, tossing them in the air as our lives filled up and praying they wouldn't come crashing down on our heads.
Willow Bay
#72. I think when I was in my early twenties and middle twenties I didn't even know I wasn't living up to my potential. A couple of friends told me I wasn't and told me to get my act together, and it made a huge impact on me.
Shirley Maclaine
#73. Take out another notebook, pick up another pen, and just write, just write, just write. In the middle of the world, make one positive step. In the center of chaos, make one definitive act. Just write. Say yes, stay alive, be awake. Just write. Just write. Just write.
Natalie Goldberg
#74. If I had to sum up in a word what makes a good manager, I'd say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act.
Lee Iacocca
#75. You can't keep your feet on the ground, hoping to enjoy the fruits of your labour. The fruits are on the top; keep climbing till you pluck them with your hands!
Israelmore Ayivor
#76. We jumped into water so clear and warm that it was like jumping from air to air. The sand rose up under us and we floated to where it met the sea and walked out of the water like creatures in an act of evolution.
Elisabeth Eaves
#77. I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in.
Sarah Polley
#78. One must remember equality, yet also be aware of difference, for if the people are allowed to act as it pleases them without coming up against displeasure, if one gives rein to its desires without setting [any] limit, it becomes confused and can no longer take delight in anything.
Xunzi
#79. 'Newsies' is definitely aerobic! The boys have to do a lot more than I do in the show, but for 'King of New York,' the big Act Two tap number, I have to be warmed up or I will hurt myself.
Kara Lindsay
#80. Your online life is a variety show, so if anything, the fact that you didn't put me in your stand-up act means you covet me. Maybe even more than I realize, since right now your hand is heading to your cunt yet again.
Caroline Kepnes
#81. I put myself up for full professor, an act of such unprecedented and unmitigated arrogance that the committee approved it, thus effectively rooting me to the scene of the crime, too weighed down by tenure, rank, and salary to be marketable ever again.
Richard Russo
#82. At least Lester had the decency to weep at his act of perfidy. Reader, do you know what 'perfidy' means? I have a feeling you do, based on the scene that unfolded here. But you should look up the word in your dictionary, just to be sure.
Kate DiCamillo
#83. We have parties at my house. My girlfriends and I play our iPods, with all of our favorite songs. We pick our songs and jump up on the counter and dance, and do runway stuff, and we take video with my camera. When I'm with my girlfriends, I act like I'm 19.
Avril Lavigne
#84. Eight people show up. The emcee is warm, friendly, and about as funny as Shoah. I take the stage to the sound of, my hand to God, one person clapping once and only once, and then I start into my act.
Patton Oswalt
#85. When media coverage sets up a binary opposition between 'the accuser' and 'the accused,' there is no longer a victim or even an alleged victim - a flesh and blood person who was harmed by the violent act of another.
Jackson Katz
#86. Part of my act is meant to shake you up. It looks like I'm being funny, but I'm reminding you of other things. Life is tough, darling. Life is hard. And we better laugh at everything; otherwise, we're going down the tube.
Joan Rivers
#87. We can wake ourselves up, discover in ourselves an energy that was hidden there, and act with more clarity, more force.
Dalai Lama
#88. I've always wanted to act and I grew up a little on film sets when my dad was working as an actor.
Saoirse Ronan
#89. Maybe that's what praying is all about. Maybe it's not just asking God to forgive us for bad things or asking Him for good things. Maybe it's just the act of praying and feeling that there's someone up there listening that makes us feel better and less helpless.
Sarah Darer Littman
#90. We teach people in order to open up their minds and release their captive powers. But we cannot predict the result. Freedom - we free their minds from superstition. We give the people the keys of the future to act therein as they wish.
Tayeb Salih
#91. He had no longer any need for home, for he carried his Gormenghast within him. All that he sought was jostling within himself. He had grown up. What a boy had set out to seek a man had found, found by the act of living.
Mervyn Peake
#92. We haven't rushed to set up targets, either in business or in football. Our goal was to understand how to act and then to move gradually.
Sergey Galitsky
#93. We grew up watching Woody Allen and Albert Brooks movies, and we see this neurotic, annoying, unlikeable male at the center of a story, and people root for him anyway. I think that's really what we have been craving as women is the hero who doesn't look perfect and doesn't act perfectly.
Jill Soloway
#94. 23 Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves - to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life.
Joseph Smith Jr.
#95. If we knew when we woke up that it would be the last day of our lives, we would transform every little act of our daily humdrum into small farewells.
Alexandre A. Loch
#96. Stand-up was my entree into the entertainment world. I didn't have to act out somebody else's words. I could just stand there with a microphone, and nobody would interrupt me. It's the most narcissistic thing you could probably do.
Chelsea Handler
#97. Asked whether donor nations may be becoming fatigued ... The fatigue may be there, but I don't think we can justify it in the face of such misery. We may need to wake up our conscience and our conscience must force us to act.
Kofi Annan
#98. I moved from acting to stand-up because castings are just about what you look like. It doesn't matter if you can act or not. In comedy, no one cares what you look like.
Mark Billingham
#99. No small part of the club's audience consisted of would-be comics, as well as the leading comics of the day. In fact, there were so many gagsters around that it was difficult to know who was part of the act and who was just sitting in.
Kliph Nesteroff
#100. I grew up in the 1950s and '60s, when it was almost a holiday when a black act would go on Ed Sullivan.
Al Sharpton
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