Dianne Wiest Quotes

I don't think I'm very ambitious at all. But I seem to play people who have that quality.

I'm quite subdued, believe it or not. I switch it on for the camera.

It turns out I do okay just playing an angry self-righteous woman.

I'm a chilled out guy but if needs be the claws can come out.

My mother's not a political person. She just doesn't want me to be mean... sometimes I have to be mean. It's like a parent or a teacher. Sometimes for the good of everybody you have to be a little bit strong, a little bit confrontational.

My dad just wanted me to find something to do to keep me out of trouble. Boxing was the great escape.

I'm not a screamer. I'm confrontational, but I don't think that translates into anger.

I'm a fun father, but not a good father. The hard decisions always went to my wife.

Be aware that the more often a child hears the word no, the greater his need to say no himself.

Sometimes as a parent, you have to give your child that doesn't do his or her chores some tough love and withhold the allowance.

People like casting me as these characters who definitely have an edge to them, but I don't really think 'bad boy' is something anyone can say about themselves without sounding stupid.

I'm as patient a father as I am on the tennis court. It takes a lot for me to get really upset, but sometimes kids can get you really cross if they really keep bugging you.

I know there are actors we all want to beat up a little. I think it's important to do whatever it takes, and whatever it takes sometimes involves some physical or mental discipline. There's a lot at stake.

I think it's easiest to teach by example. My dad didn't tell us to work hard; we just saw how hard he worked. I know I have shortcomings - like a short fuse - but I've learned you can't come home from a long day of work and snap at the kids.

I'm a normal guy at heart. But on stage, they don't pay me for normal.

People in general are used to seeing me as the naughty girl because that's what they've always cast me as.

Marriage and the up-bringing of children in the home require as well-trained a mind and as well-disciplined a character as any other occupation that might be considered a career

Discipline socialized children. They became tolerable to those who didn’t already love them.

When I was a kid, the people that used to push other people around, if someone whacked them, then they wouldn't be pushing people around again. But you can't really do that with adults.

Playing a character for four years, in people's minds, that's who you are.

On film, I'm very mysterious, but in life I'm very dull.

I always play these bad guys, and I'm really a nice guy.

In acting, you have a writer, a director, a character - you're working through being another person - and the irony I always tell people is when I acted early on as a teenager, it actually kept me out of trouble.

I am not a particularly aggressive person. That's not Erica.

Losing your patience and your temper isn't the most attractive thing, but as kids get older, you wind up raising your voice.