- I think that people who are famous tend to be underdeveloped in their humanity skills.
- [on her nude scene in Something's Gotta Give (2003)] At this point, does it really matter? Nobody is looking at me the way I once imagined people would look at me, like with deviant thoughts. I think they just go, "Huh. There it is. Intact."
- I find the same thing sexy in a man now as I always have: humor. I love it when they are funny. It's to die for.
- Of course I recognized myself in the roles [Woody Allen] wrote. I mean, in Annie Hall (1977) particularly. I was this sort of novice who had lots of feelings but didn't know how to express herself, and I see that in Annie. I think Woody used a kind of essential quality that he found in me at that time, and I'm glad he did because it worked really well in the movie.
- I build a wall around myself. I'm hard to get to know. Any trait you have, it gets worse as you go along.
- I think about dying every single day. I've lost lots of friends, and they die in the most bizarre ways. It's like, "That can't possibly be! How could that have happened?" And all I can think is, "That could have been me."
- It's kind of true, you do disappear off the planet if you are a middle-aged woman, but that has some advantages as well. Because too much of my life was spent waiting to be seen. Hoping to be seen, hoping to be picked. Once you realize that you aren't looked at that way any more, other things start to happen and you have to depend on other things to get by.
- I had a career and I came to motherhood late and am not married and have never had such a trusting relationship with a man - and trust is where the real power of love comes from.
- When I was younger I had these enormous vanities about what I expected from myself. I'm glad to have a comfortable and fascinating life, but now I see it for what it is, so I can be braver and more spontaneous and say to myself, "Oh, screw it, just go out there and do it."
- I'm limited, so, I kind of know where I fit as an actress. I kind of get it now, finally, after all of these years of trying to be a dramatic actress. I kind of think that'd I'd like to continue dealing with these things in a funny, lighter vein, but also truthful and honest.
- I just have to keep going back to the core and think that we're all afraid of it and when we're afraid of it, you run to something much easier, something that looks like candy.
- [regarding getting drug shots before each performance of the 1968 rock musical, "Hair"] At the time it was astonishing to have a job. It was odd. Before the show opened we got a shot by a doctor Bishop. A vitamin shot, only it was not vitamins. It was like methamphetamines. You were flying. A lot of people got addicted.
- The idea of speaking your thoughts out loud is so important. It's been downplayed recently because now we have medication to help people in situations. But I think it's important to talk your thoughts out loud, because you don't really own them until you do that.
- When I first got to know Woody and I was going out with him, I noticed that people never wanted to hear anything that I had to say at all. They just wanted to be in the shadow of his light and I remember really having a hard time with that.
- I would audition for the talent show when I was in junior high school, and I was going to sing All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth. But it was my mother's idea that I black out my teeth at the tryout, and that of course secured my position on the list of people who would be in the talent show.
- When I was little, we'd get in the station wagon and go all over California. Childhood memories can really dominate your life.
- Don't give up on yourself. So you make a mistake here and there; you do too much or you do too little. Just have fun. Smile. And keep putting on lipstick.
- I don't think that because I'm not married it's made my life any less. That old maid myth is garbage.
- When I find myself in the absurd position of sitting in the director's chair, I try to sit quietly. I try to leave the actors alone as much as possible. I try not to burden the atmosphere with a lot of talk. Talk is cheap. As Shirley Chisholm said, 'I am not interested in what people say. What I am interested in is what they do.' Sometimes language is used by both actors and directors to evade the moment of truth: action. The use of language to avoid acting is further complicated by the maze of lies we don't identify as lies, hiding our secret fears and insecurities. To me, endless self-involved talk kills impulse. I like to think that as a director I create an atmosphere of trust and, most important, play, in order to ease actors into the scary plunge of acting.
- I'm not a natural-born director. Now that I'm actually doing it, I wonder why everybody wants to in the first place. You have to think of everything.
- For a while you think, 'Oh, you have to have someone in your life to be fulfilled.' Now I don't feel that way for a second.
- I didn't know my dad nearly as well as I know my mother. However, I felt a tremendous closeness to him regarding performing. My father was extraordinary, like a light, when he would come backstage. I had his attention in, yeah, oh boy, a big way. I'll never forget the first time--this is so stupid. I did 'Little Mary Sunshine' in high school. My father was radiant. I was shocked. I didn't know what I had done that made him so excited.
- believe my job as the director is to listen, to laugh, to empathize, to encourage and to be deeply moved by what I hope will be deeply moving performances. My job is to know when the actors are telling the truth, feeling the truth, living the truth--their truth. My job is to make it clear how much I am rooting for them in their effort to find a way, a process, a skill, that unlocks and frees them into giving the audience all their accumulated experiences and insights and feelings in the service of the screenplay.
- [about her initial brush with fame as a cast member of the original Broadway production of "Hair"] The cast went insane from the attention--people just didn't know how to handle it. I remember somebody had a baby while on LSD in the dressing room. I always sort of felt on the outside of the Tribe [as the cast was called]. It's my nature to be cautious and a little bit ... leery.
- Actresses are constantly trying to please everyone, or at least I am. But I don't think plastic surgery solves your problem. I was definitely not going to have sex before I got married and that went out the window! So who knows?
- How could I resent Annie Hall (1977), the thing that gave me all I have? I'd have to be a fool, a moron. Besides, good things don't come without problems: Yes, I got typecast, yes, I lost my privacy--but God, give me that again!
- [on dating] Those days are over.
- [asked whether men ask her out, InStyle magazine, July 2019] Never. All right? Let's just get that straight. That one's important. I haven't been on a date in, I would say, 35 years. No dates. I have a lot of male friends. I have a lot of friends, but no dates. No mwah-mwah.
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