Toni Collette Quotes

It's so easy to get stuck. You just get caught in being something, being special or cool or whatever, to the point where you don't even know why you need it; you just think you do.

I usually have to find something where I go, "I have to do this." Sometimes you don't even know what the question you're trying to answer is, but you go, "This is something I need to explore and want to explore, and it's inside me in a way that I think I can do a good job with."

When I read profiles of myself, I sometimes think: 'I have spent my whole life struggling to understand my motivations and impulses, and I've never quite sorted them out.'

By the time I hit college, my secret shame was the reason I was an actor was my own words sort of dried up. I stopped writing. I stopped being able to form my own vision. That's actually what my first feature is about - looking back at two different selves.

I wasn't driven into medicine by a social conscience but by rampant curiosity.

If I lose touch with that... the reason why I act... then I'll leave it all. I don't do it for fame or money.

You cannot will yourself to be interested in something you're not interested in. But you can actively discover and deepen your interest.

What inspires me in life? The idea that the work and the rewards and the process is the thing.

I don't get competitive, really. So I don't know. If I'm excited about something, hopefully someone will think, "Oh right, you should do this." And that's great. I'm not being very articulate about this. I just don't want to do stuff if I'm going to feel bummed out and uninspired.

Other people's deconstruction of your motivations doesn't help you do what you do. You can't swallow and think about swallowing at the same time.

You know when you're doing something right and when you're doing something wrong. As long as you feel like you're doing something right, and you're getting rewarded, then you're successful. But, if you're judging it on, Well, if I had that, I'd be successful - that doesn't work. I think doing what you love is success. Pretty cheesy. But it's true.

I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then

After looking at Salomaybe, I don't know who the hell the real me is. I think it's closest now to the real me because for one thing, I'm used to this.

I don't necessarily do anything just for the money. I do it for the passion and I do it for the love, because I'm still hungry. So if I want to do music, it's not necessarily motivated because of monetary value. It's more about the passion and the love, and I think that's where music should come from, the heart, not necessarily just to cash a check.

Sometimes you walk away from playing somebody and you think, "Wow that was far as from my own experience as I can possibly be." And sometimes you walk away thinking, "Wow. There are qualities in that character that I didn't realize I had." And those can be both interesting and uncomfortable.

What are we taking from people and what do we give is a life-long struggle, I think, for most of us. Who are we? Do we like who we are? Do we know who we are? Do we care? Does anyone care? That's such a big topic. I could tackle that in many movies. So could other people.

I think the balance is between what you can get, what you want and what wants you.

Like an enemy I knew as intimately as any friend, I came to know the nagging, constant emptiness of the incongruent life. I ignored myself and lived for people, purposes, and goals that weren't my own. I betrayed who I was and instead accepted a fictional substitute that was defined from the outside in.

Find your passion and follow it. You wont find that passion in things or money. Your passion must come from what fuels you from the inside. It will be grounded in the relationships you have with people and what they think of you when your time comes.

She asked me what made me do such a thing. That is an awkward question because I often can't tell what makes me do things. Sometimes I do them just to find out what I feel like doing them. And sometimes I do them because I want to have some exciting things to tell my grandchildren.

It may be the coldest day of The year, what does he think of That? I mean, what do I? And if I do, Perhaps I am myself again.

It comes from within.

I would give all I possess to get out of myself; but somehow, at the end, I find myself so vastly more interesting than nine tenths of the people I meet.

I acknowledge that I have no idea who the hell I am, and I think that's the first step.

I think I need to face what I could have been in order to understand and accept what I am.