James Salter Quotes

I think people will discover themselves in 'Ankahee.'

There's never been anything I didn't love that I didn't connect with on a personal level because, to some degree, I projected upon it.

I look for characters that speak to something in me.

The ideal way to approach a character is to find something in yourself that relates in some way.

Every role you play is literally - and I've said this before - every single role that you play, the only way you can connect to that character is because that was a piece of you that was scattered around that yard, almost like we got caught up in some whirlwind.

I think I had a particular moment when I was 15 years old. I read 'Crime and Punishment,' and that book just, I think, more than any other book made me want to be a writer, 'cause it was the first time that I hadn't just entered a book, but a book had entered me.

I can't pick out one single book that had such a profound personal impact.

I think if a character appeals to you, there are certain parts of yourself will come to the fore and other parts that will play down.

One day at my grandmother's house, I discovered 'The Secret Garden' and read it. This was the first book I found entirely for myself, and I cherished it.

'Moby-Dick' really threw me. I read it when I was 14 and my best friends were books. It changed the way I looked at the world.

I didn't want to make cinema so a person forgets himself and has a lot of fun. 'I forget myself, I am a little poor consumer.' I wanted to make a picture where someone who sees it say, 'This is me! This is me!'

'Middlesex' by Jeffrey Eugenides left me both moved and, at times, laughing out loud in delight.

I think that I identify with my role in pretty much everything I have tried to do. I try to find something that I can understand about each character's behavior.

I'm trying to look into each character and try to realize her as someone who is also me.

'Aura' is a song where you're looking at yourself in the mirror, and I was personally impacted when I recorded it. I identified with it.

I think I find a commonality between characters and the different sides of myself.

It's super dope when you connect with something personally.

A book burrows into your life in a very profound way because the experience of reading is not passive.

I like movies that instill passion in the viewer. I like movies that can teach us about who we are as people.

My life is at least as intricate as my readers' lives. People say that 'The Artist's Way' changed their lives, but when they talk about 'Floor Sample,' they tell me, 'I was with you all the way.'

The outlines of the needed psychology of becoming can be discovered by looking within ourselves; for it is knowledge of our own uniqueness that supplies the first, and probably the best, hints for acquiring orderly knowledge of others.

My personality doesn't interest me.

I've always used my own personal emotions and things that I've gone through in my life to build a character. The work that I do before a film feels almost like therapy, between me and whoever I'm playing.

What you are is a question only you can answer.

As an actor, you always want to find a piece of who you are in every role you take on.