William Faulkner Quotes

I think to be honest, that being is inside. I meet that being in so many people that I meet everywhere in the world and when I do meet that being, in other people, what I want to ask is "How do we keep opening ourselves so that we can become as vulnerable and as willing to live in the deepest complexity and ambiguity and truth that we can?

Give me life, give me pain, give me myself again.

Real human emotion is always interesting.

I feel like the job of an artist is to confront their own darkness and their own demons and fears. And I want to make movies that feel human up on the screen. I don't really relate to dudes wearing spandex and capes.

Vulnerability is important in life, I feel. That's what allows you to experience intense emotions, whether it's joy or pain or sadness.

The thing that bubbles up the most when I'm around other people is that I feel a joy of being alive. But I also am a very sensitive person and have many heavier feelings. It can be tiresome after a while to only do comedy, especially after you grow as a person. It starts to feel like you're playing an older version of yourself.

That was one of the saddest things about people--their most important thoughts and feelings often went unspoken and barely understood.

Do I worship God or what other people think of me?

The only ones that stand out to me are people like Jonathan Richman or Robyn Hitchcock, who can make you totally cry while their music is so funny and they're hilarious. They know they're great but they also don't think they're better than you and they really invite you into their show.

Grief ennobles the commonest people because it has its own essential grandeur. To shine with the luster of grief, a person need only be sincere.

It's terrible to lose somebody, but it's also true that some people never have anybody to lose, and I think that's got to be so much worse.

People tell me it's a sin, to know and feel too much within.

But I don't want to have to stop feeling. I really think I'd rather die than stop feeling.

All the pictures in magazines and all of that is fun but in the end it's all about your soul and who you are and have you connected with the people.

I think I was a little disappointed in her. I expected then people to be more of a piece than I do now, and I was distressed to find so much vindictiveness in so charming a creature. I did not realize how motley are the qualities that go to make up a human being. Now I am well aware that pettiness and grandeur, malice and charity, hatred and love, can find place side by side in the same human heart.

I think a lot of people become actors because they have a great reservoir and repertoire of many different emotions they felt over their lives. It's like having a toolbox, and you go down into the toolbox and choose one or two of those that you need for a particular scenario, or something that comes up in a line.

People don't walk around thinking of themselves as bad people. You're part of the environment that you grow up in, and there can be decency in that. I always try to find a little glimmer of that, in anything that I do, because you can find places where there's humor or lightness in something that's deep and profound, and that tends to resonate more and make people more human. As an actor and performer, I think it resonates more with the audience when you do have the payoff.

I think it's one of the nicest privileges as an actor is to know that you can move people in one moment, make them think about their lives, or make them laugh or make them cry or make them understand something. Or just make them feel something because I think so many of us, including myself, spend too much time not feeling enough, you know?

I balance things better and don't kill myself so much, but conflict makes me a more interesting actress to watch. The places I go to pull emotions from, I think if you have a perfect, happy life, you just don't have those places. And I want those places. I'm proud of those places.

I think people enjoy "The Lobster" because people respond to original things, but I think they only respond to original things if they connect to some truths within us.

The only question that nobody ever asks is: What breaks your heart? I think that should be asked of all "artists."... So, what breaks your heart?

I feel guilty when people say I'm the greatest on the scene. What's good or bad doesn't matter to me; what does matter is feeling and not feeling. If only people would take more of a true view and think in terms of feelings. Your name doesn't mean a damn, it's your talents and feelings that matter. You've got to know much more than just the technicalities of notes; you've got to know what goes between the notes.

I think grief is a step towards strength because it allows you to be porous and take everything in, and have it transform you. What will sit within you is despairing, but at least it's feeling. You're not numb. Grief is sort of the allowance of feeling.

I really believe that all of us have a lot of darkness in our souls. Anger, rage, fear, sadness. I don't think that's only reserved for people who have horrible upbringings.

Sorrow makes for sincerity, I think.