Carol Channing Quotes

My version of Dolly was mine, and it shouldn't be anyone else's.

It's weird when auditioning for roles, because a lot of my mates go out for the same roles. You don't want to know that you're beating someone to the role.

I'm an actor, and I think some of us who are drawn to this work know what it is to desperately want to be loved and validated: to be good at something and not be able to do it; to come in second on countless projects; or told that you were the first choice, but the part went to that guy who had that TV show in the '90s.

Whether it's writing a monologue or writing standup or writing a screenplay or writing a play, I think staying involved in the creation of your own work empowers you in a way, even if you don't ever do it. It gives you a sense of ownership and a sense of purpose, which I think as an actor is really important.

I think it's always challenging to look at a script and make it your own while maintaining the sense of what the style of the show is.

Toplines usually suck. I'll send a song to a band or artist whose entire body of work I love and I'll ask them to do a vocal for one of my songs and I'll get it back and I'll hate it so much. It might have to do with my possessiveness over my music.

The problem with being an actress is there's a lot of rejection.

I'm a power fanatic. I like to own things, and have them be mine. Acting doesn't belong to you, if you're not the writer or the director.

It's a really weird feeling when you write something and you really know it and then you watch actors come in and do it.

The only acting you ever see at the Oscars is when people act like they’re not mad they lost. Nicole Kidman was smiling so wide, she should have won an Emmy at the Oscars for her great performance. I was like, "If you’d done that in the movie, you’d have won an Oscar, girl."

I love to act, I love to sing and I love to entertain, so if I am passionate about a certain project and I want to do it, I hope to stretch my acting skills.

If you want something, if you take it for your own, you'll always be taking it from someone else.

Art is a jealous mistress.

I thought I was managing my expectations, but on hearing the news I discovered new and unfamiliar vocal tones. Perhaps I should do another musical.

You look good wearing my future.

Nope. That´s my line. This is my boyfriend´s house, which makes that my line,exclusively.Where is he?" Nora (p. 287)

It's fun to play characters in songs. I can just cheat a little bit... be this person for just a small amount of time and just help vent that idea.

The two qualities which chiefly inspire regard and affection are that a thing is your own and that it is your only one.

Of course it is,’ said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to everything that Alice said; ‘there’s a large mustard-mine near here. And the moral of that is– “The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours.

First of all, I appropriate photographs.In presenting the Richard Prince photograph I tried to be as neutral as I could be. I put down the fact of it. I wanted it to be the same thing he wanted it to be, an open ended invitation to think about authorship, and who owns a created work. So I pair it with my appropriated picture.

What we desire is not to possess a woman, but to be the only one to possess her.

I used to be a chemical-engineering student, but I started studying acting, and I went for a cattle call, up against hundreds of people. They tore me down because I was too tall. They said "How tall are you?" "6'5"." "Next."

I'm like a little kid that has a basketball and don't want nobody else to play with it. "It's mine, it's mine, and it's mine!" When it comes to sneakers.

I find that you can use an acting technique when the thing isn't working, not that you make the technique the end result of your work. You use the technique when you're in trouble and things aren't flowing the way they should. It's a way of fooling yourself to make it work again.