Quotes About The Roles We Play

#1. Beneath the seemingly rational exterior of our lives is a fear of insanity. We dare not question the values by which we live or rebel against the roles we play for fear of putting our sanity in doubt.

Alexander Lowen

#2. In the end, we are not the roles we play. We are the light that animates every soul in the dance we call life.

Alan Cohen

#3. The roles we play in each other's lives are only as powerful as the trust and connection between us
the protection, safety, and caring we are willing to share.

Oprah Winfrey

#4. I think women have long been defined by their roles as procreators and wives, and we're expected to serve, take care of, say 'Yes,' and not ruffle any feathers. Women, in particular, are sometimes not allowed to consider who they are outside of the roles that they play.

Carrie Coon

#5. I have learned that in a long life we all eventually play the part of the betrayed, and we all eventually play the part of the betrayer, and neither is pleasant because both roles involve pain, inflicting or absorbing it.

Robert Wagner

#6. That's one of the things we're most excited about, really, is just allowing this great, Oscar-nominated actor, giving him material to play in one of his signature roles.

David Kirschner

#7. It's an under-represented demographic and it's a really loyal fan base and it's really nice to play those roles without making a big deal about it or making too much comment, because the more we normalise it the better. You're not defined by your sexuality but by what you do.

Jaime Murray

#8. Who are we beyond the roles that we play?

Joan Anderson

#9. So often, trans roles don't even go to trans actors. Most of the fabulous trans roles that have won people Oscars, we didn't get to play. A lot of folks have said we're not trained enough and that we're not prepared to do whatever.

Laverne Cox

#10. I do not regard the procuring of peace as a matter in which we should play the role of arbiter between different opinions ... more that of an honest broker who really wants to press the business forward.

Otto Von Bismarck

#11. I find I am more interested in the villain-type roles because they can be so much more complex than just the villain. I don't think anybody sees them as evil per se. They show how close we are to one another. It's an untapped area of art. And I think, physically, I'm not going to play the hero.

Shuler Hensley

#12. We overthrew the feudal system in the 1600s, and the theocracy in the 1700s. But currently, corporations play similar roles in many of our lives, either directly or indirectly.

John Battelle

#13. I'd compare college tuition to paying for a personal trainer at an athletic club. We professors play the roles of trainers, giving people access to the equipment (books, labs, our expertise) and after that, it is our job to be demanding.

Randy Pausch

#14. Just because we are women doesn't mean the only roles we can play are that of the finger-shaking girlfriend.

Sarah Shahi

#15. We must know our own roles. We should also know the roles that others play, and the rules such roles follow. In this manner, social harmony is maintained. It is when we overstep our roles, or act without knowing them, that social anarchy ensues.

F. Sionil Jose

#16. We're not just somebody's girlfriend who smiles all the time and bakes cookies and always has lingerie ready and their hair done. That's not real. The roles that I play are about bringing as much reality into it as possible.

Madeline Zima

#17. For years we have heard of the role the Elders could play in saving the Constitution from total destruction. But how can the Elders be expected to save it if they have not studied it and are not sure if it is being destroyed or what is destroying it.

Ezra Taft Benson

#18. I remember reading scripts when I started in the business, and [Latino roles] were either nonexistent or written as the maid or a drug dealer. We're no longer just that. I'll play any part that challenges me. What's important is that all races have choices.

Eva Mendes

#19. Our lives are written by the divine hands of Him we are merely actors destined to complete the roles in the cosmic play. All that would make difference would be how well will you act!

Preeth Nambiar

#20. The giving and receiving is the tricky thing. It's not the gift. It's what the heart says in giving the gift, and from my point of view, one doesn't give or receive - that's a role we have to play. But the gift - it's God's gift. I think that it's better to be souls than roles.

Ram Dass

#21. In the contract days, the big studios groomed us to play particular roles and we would stay with the image they gave us and insisted on.

Robert Wagner

#22. We tried to make a heaven of earth,
But the earth is just a stage, a school,
Where we wear our masks and play our roles
And teach each other how to love.

Kate McGahan

#23. For Michael Wright and Frank Darabont to cast me as the ultimate good guy and Eddie Burns as the ultimate bad guy, and really switching roles from what we usually play, is pretty awesome. That generally doesn't happen, but TNT is a horse of a different color.

Neal McDonough

#24. I'm interested in how identity is transient. How do we know who we really are, when different situations and environments dictate how we behave? I'm interested in the role we all play. We spend our whole lives becoming ourselves when we are born as no one else.

Marina And The Diamonds

#25. when we choose the roles we want to play we want to portray our best self. PREPARE FOR THE ROLE YOU WANT, NOT THE ROLE YOU HAVE.

Sally Bennett

#26. We are cruel when someone refuses to play the role in which we have cast him. We judge a person only according to his relationship towards us.

Anais Nin

#27. I think Danny Boyle's got it in his head that we all still look too young (to do a 'Trainspotting' sequel.) But, I mean, I don't look like anyone I play, anyways, so I don't really know where that comes from. Because, you know, you change yourself for the roles. I'm actually not Scottish, either!

Jonny Lee Miller

#28. What I've learned along the way is that existence is cosmic theatre, but paradoxically, we should play our roles to the absolute best of our ability while having the wisdom not to take them too seriously.

Tom Robbins

#29. Everything I did actually helped to build the revenue, shall we say, of experience, which enabled me to play a variety of roles as I got older.

Angela Lansbury

#30. So often when Black men have to play roles on TV, we're either the noble savage or we're completely a savage, and there's no nuance.

Don Cheadle

#31. Pass the popcorn, please. Life is a film, theatre, a theatre of the soul. We play different roles on different stages. At death, we walk offstage. At birth, we walk onstage.

Frederick Lenz

#32. Playing our parts. Yes, we all have to do that and from childhood on, I have found that my own character has been much harder to play worthily and far harder at times to comprehend than any of the roles I have portrayed.

Bette Davis

#33. When I was in school, in eighth grade, someone recognized something in me. She was an English teacher, and we read a play out loud in class, and she asked me to read one of the roles. I'd never done anything like that before, but something just lit up.

David Morse

#34. I had a brother who was bullying me to write something because we wanted to make our own movies. So it was out of necessity in the beginning. Over time, I began to see that I could create the roles I wanted to play rather than just waiting around.

Joel Edgerton

#35. We've never thought too deeply about the roles things like forgetting or partisanship or inefficiency or ambiguity or hypocrisy play in our political or social life. It's been impossible to get rid of them, so we took them for granted, and we kind of thought, naively, that they're always the enemy.

Evgeny Morozov

#36. When you're asking about roles for men and women, men certainly have a longer shelf life. Men can play the sexy lead for 20 years longer than we can.

Jennifer Lawrence

#37. When my friends and I would act out movies as kids, we'd play the guys' roles, since they had the most interesting things to do. Decades later, I can hardly believe my sons and daughter are seeing many of the same limited choices in current films.

Geena Davis

#38. This is not the 19th century, where actors are expected to play completely opposite roles. We're not typecast, but we're brought in because somebody thinks that it's a good fit, so you make it a better fit.

Kate Mulgrew

#39. As children, we think our mother has always been a mother, but it is just one of the roles you may have the opportunity to play. They don't define you as a human being.

Amy Bloom