Meryl Streep Quotes

People are not so dreadful when you know them. That's what you have to remember! And everybody has problems, not just you, but practically everybody has got some problems. You think of yourself as having the only problems, as being the only one who is disappointed. But just look around you and you will see lots of people as disappointed as you are.

I see myself as a witness to humanity.

We are all human beings. We all go through a lot at certain times of our lives.

I think the whole glory of writing lies in the fact that it forces us out of ourselves and into the lives of others.

This is not what it is like to be you, I realized as a few of your magnificent clouds flew over the rooftop. It is just me thinking about being you. And before I headed back down the hill, I walked in a circle around your house, making an invisible line which you would have to cross before dark.

Everyone is always going through tough things, the irony in it is that everyone thinks what they're going through is just as hard as what you are. Life isn't about surviving this, it's about understanding this.

No one can shed light on vices he does not have or afflictions he has ever experienced.

We read to know we're not alone.

We are aching to come together and I think it has little to do with liberal or conservative discourse. I think it has to do with increasing disconnection with what is real and soul-serving.

We look into each other's eyes as we shake. His are still full of death and horror, but in them I see my face reflected, and inside my tiny eyes inside his, I think I see some hope.

The misery of other people is only an abstraction something that can be sympathized with only by drawing from one's own experiences. But as it stands, true empathy remains impossible. And so long as it is, people will continue to suffer the pressure of their seemingly singular existence.

This human condition and people's stories. That's what I love. The other thing is traveling.

I think that's true of all cinema, that's why cinema is the great humanistic art form. Whatever the film is, it doesn't matter what the film is about, or even whether it's a narrative or figurative film at all, it's an invitation to step into somebody else's shoes. Even if it's the filmmaker's shoes filming a landscape, you go into somebody else's shoes and you look out of their lens, you look out of their eyes and their imagination. That's what going to the pictures is all about.

Nothing human is foreign to us

Everyone's got their problems and their demons, but when we get onstage and play as five, that really all goes away, and that's really all I look at.

I know that I've had a very fortunate life, but also I think my job as an actor is to connect emotionally to human beings.

You know, there's a thing about the woman across the room. You see the woman across the room, you think, She's so poised; she's so together. But she looks at you and you are the woman across the room for her.

A good writer - and I think it's this way with actors too - even if you have two lines, you have to do the same complete work as if you're number one on the call sheet. If you get in an elevator and somebody gets on, rides two floors and gets off, that person has a reality that goes back to when they were born. They have memories, they have people, they have a life. They are doing something right now that the camera is on them in their space. We live in our own close-up all the time.

I want to explore humanity and human kind. I think that what's common for all of the things that I've done and all the things that I want to do is that they are all connected to some deeper things in our souls.

You were supposed to empathize with your friend's problem, but they were, after all, your friend's problems.

but you could also look at it the other way. Like you’re saying no matter how bad things are for you, I can still relate.

No life is a waste. The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we're alone.

You think the only people who are people, are the people who look and think like you. But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn things you never knew you never knew.

What's so exciting and terrifying about the writing process is that it really is an act of exploration and discovery. With all of us, not just writers, there is a sort of knowledge of the other. We have a lot more in common than we realize, and I think writing is really a sustained act of empathy.

I don't know what I'd do without you. There's no one else to look after me. And it's not just that. I sometimes think you're the only person who really knows me. I only feel normal when I'm with you.