Limited Agency Quotes

You've already put more than enough energy into worry. That's all women have been allowed to do, historically.

It's frustrating not to have more control over your material.

Government, we are sometimes told, is just another word for things we choose to do together. Like a lot of things politicians say, this sounds good. And, also like a lot of things politicians say, it isn't the least bit true. Many of the things government does, we don't choose. Many of the things we choose, government doesn't do. And whatever gets done, we're not the ones doing it. And those who are doing it often interpret their mandates selfishly.

As a model, I am at the mercy of everybody else. It's much more of a situation where I go to work, put the clothes on, get in front of the camera, and then go home. But in that process, I never really have control over any of it.

I have had no control over my life. I have lived in a complete bubble. They found me and picked me for the part. And now I'm desperately trying to find my way through it.

Maybe it's because I've been an actor for such a long time, but I think, unless you're a big star, you don't really have much control over anything. I've never been able to make any plans.

But I have always - ever since The Accidental Woman - written novels about individuals attempting to make choices in the context of situations over which they have no control.

When I was little, acting opportunities were always proposed to me as 'a favour.'

The old theory was, that the least possible should be left to the choice of the individual agent; that all he had to do should, as far as practicable, be laid down for him by superior wisdom. Left to himself he was sure to go wrong.

Obviously you can stash money under your mattress, cut down on hazelnut lattes, but in terms of the larger economic frame of our lives, we have very little agency. About one of the only things you can do is understand it.

I've been, for want of a better phrase, a supporting actress so much of my life.

In film work, you do the best you can under the given circumstances, but you don't have control. At least, I don't.

When you're relegated to go from movie to movie, so much of what you're doing is out of your control beyond creating the product.

For the machine, because of the way it is built, can work only in a given direction, no matter who pulls its levers.

Of course men play roles, but women play roles too, blanker ones. They have, in the play of life, fewer good lines.

In a way, no matter who's in charge of the corporation that the United States is, the direction in which it is taken seems to be inexorable. So, you just get the job of being the front man for four or eight years. Now, most people realize that's what you are.