Meryl Streep Quotes

I had this sort of idolatry for certain actors who preceded me, people who inspired me, so I'm honored to be that way for young actors.

Having been let out of the barn once, I know I wouldn't be happy if I were home all the time.

Acting is my way of investigating human nature and having fun at the same time

The key to every actor is deep, deep insecurity.

All that attention to the perfect lighting, the perfect this, the perfect that, I find terribly annoying.

Being an actor lets me be a million different things.

Obsession is an attractive thing. People who are really, really interested and good at one thing and smart are attractive, if they're men.

I wonder which of the megaton bombs Jesus, our President's personal savior, would have personally dropped on the sleeping families of Baghdad?

Empathy is at the heart of the actor's art.

The work will stand, no matter what.

Guard your good mood.

The greatest gift given to man by God - is the ability to empathize.

Personality is immediately apparent, from birth, and I don't think it really changes.

Anyone who wants to achieve something, needs a lot of work.

Instant gratification is not soon enough.

The interesting thing about being a mother is that everyone wants pets, but no one but me cleans the kitty litter.

I once read that in any good marriage, one partner is the gardener and the other is the garden. We take it in turns to be either.

In other characters, it's driven by insecurity, or it's driven by fear, or - there's always a driver. And all the physical manifestations, you need your way in.

Young people who learn the arts do better in every phase of their lives.

I have a lot to say about the world, clearly. I can't put together a clear sentence about it all, but through the work I can say what I think.

For me, clothes are kind of character; I don't follow fashion or understand trends.

I couldn't care less about fashion. If I had taken any clothes home, they would have remained in my closet for the rest of their existence.

I believe in imagination. I did Kramer vs Kramer before I had children. But the mother I would be was already inside me.

On every film, the clothes are half the battle in creating the character. I have a great deal of opinion about how my people are presented. We show a great deal by what we put on our bodies.

If I am not confident that I can portray the character perfectly on screen, I won't even try.

Singing and acting are very similar. Singing makes you reach into your deepest feelings. Singing is an extension of everything that you do when you're acting.

Everyone tries to look a cookie-cutter kind of way, and actually the people who look different are the ones who get picked up.

I have a theory that movies operate on the level of dreams, where you dream yourself.

I want to feel my life while I'm in it.

Wrinkled, wrinkled little star... hope they never see the scars.

We all make the mistake thinking that how you look makes you more worthy of love.

I'm all over the place.

How you first meet the public is how the industry sees you. You can't argue with them. That's their perception.

This is your time and it feels normal to you, but really, there is no normal. There's only change and resistance to it and then more change.

Expensive clothes are a waste of money.

My family really does come first. It always did and always will.

I have a very busy life, and not many people who have a career and four kids go out a lot to the movies.

I would like Martin Scorsese to be interested in a female character once in a while, but I don’t know if I’ll live that long.

Life is all about making choices and I'm very happy with mine. I have had a wonderful time raising four children and I've also been lucky to have the support of a wonderful husband.

The progression of roles you take strings together a portrait of an actor, but it's a completely random process.

You have been told that Real Life is not like college, and you have been correctly informed. Real Life is more like high school.

No one has ever asked an actor, 'You're playing a strong-minded man.' We assume that men are strong-minded, or have opinions. But a strong-minded woman is a different animal.

You're perfectly balanced because then you effervesce seemingly effortlessly. And it's a thing a person can't manufacture. You either have that or you don't. You have charm or you don't.

It is well that the earth is round that we do not see too far ahead.

Every single decision I make about what material I do, what I'm putting out in the world, is because of my children.

Sometimes with my children, I remember exactly how I felt as the child in this situation, not just how it feels to be me.

Take your heart to work and ask the most and best of everybody.

Interestingly, young people don't come to you for advice. Especially the ones who are related to you.

I think we all think we sound really good in the shower, where there's that nice reverb.

Sometimes you look out the window and you look at all the windows, and think inside very single one of them is somebody with some huge, weird, terrible problem, some great jokes.