The art of acting is not to act. Once you show them more, what you show them, in fact is bad acting.

I’m happy being myself, which I’ve never been before. I always hid in other people, or tried to find myself through the characters, or live out their lives, but I didn’t have those things in mine.

The single most powerful thing I can be is to be myself.

The only thing I know is I ain’t changing my brand. I know what I believe. I’m confident in what I know. And I’m gonna say it. And if folks like it, wonderful. If they don’t like it, I understand.

I don’t need you to be funny. I don’t want to be entertained.

I could imagine at a certain age, when I have no vocal cords left, that I would find a young man who could sing my parts for me. But I don’t see why I would stop.

I fear that many a man’s good resolutions only need the ordinary fire of daily life to make them melt away. So, too, with fine professions and the boastings of perfection which abound in this age of shams.

If you change and adapt your persona, you are seen as inauthentic; if you stay the angry young man, you fade from attention or seem tiresome.

I don’t have a vast longing for the stage.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.

The poet, being an imitator like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects – things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be. The vehicle of expression is language – either current terms or, it may be, rare words or metaphors.

Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It’s tough to do that when we’re terrified about what people might see or think.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

My act is an exaggeration of a part of me. I’m much more expressive off stage.

When I came into this industry, I was never afraid to be myself.

What’s the greater risk? Letting go of what people think – or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?

Something I learned as an actor was which scenes needed to be rehearsed and which actors are good with rehearsal, which actors learn from it, and which ones grow stale because they start to second-guess themselves.

I wanted to be Gerry Mulligan, only, see, I didn’t have any kind of technique. So I thought, well, baritone sax is kind of easier; I can manage that – except I couldn’t afford a baritone, so I bought an alto, which was the same fingering.

Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.

Every man should know, if you’re comfortable and you like it, you should do it. Everyone always worries about what the girls think, what the guys think. If you like it, do it.

I love that I can talk to my fans through Twitter, to cut out the middle man. Because I’ve done interviews where my words have gotten twisted, so it’s nice to be able to have things coming straight from me.

The last act is bloody, however pleasant all the rest of the play is: a little earth is thrown at last upon our head, and that is the end forever.

If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.

Because we’re actors we can pretend and fake it, but I’d rather the intimate investment was authentic.

Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument – learning to do your craft – that’s the most important thing! It’s not about what goes on in a computer!

I can’t make a song for a particular person or demographic. If I love it, I’m gonna do it. I have to perform it for the rest of my life. A song is like a tattoo – you can never get away from it.

I was acting when I was playing baseball.

People make suggestions on what to say all the time. I’ll give you an example; I don’t read what’s handed to me. People say, ‚Here, here’s your speech, or here’s an idea for a speech.‘ They’re changed. Trust me.

My songs are like my children – I expect them to support me when I’m old.

On ‚Think Like a Man,‘ they got the best out of me because they allowed me to bring my own cadences and opinions to the character that I was playing. I think we got the best of that particular character.

I want people to understand they have to live their own lives the way they want to and not just do what we do.

Hard times arouse an instinctive desire for authenticity.

I try to not focus on what people expect from me.

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.

The image is one thing and the human being is another. It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.

Oh yes. I’m an actor, so I just learn my lines, and show up and do it. I gave it a little bit of thought.

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

I have an immense amount of respect for acting. I’ve always loved movies and was always fascinated by movie-making. But to become an actor, I wanted to commit myself.

Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.

I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

I don’t really get into a big intellectual analysis of why I am going to do a certain script or not.

I love eating chocolate cake and ice cream after a show. I almost justify it in my mind as, ‚You were a good boy onstage and you did your show, so now you can have some cake and ice cream.‘

I want to show audiences I can act.

I became an actress because my mom wanted me to become an actress. It took me until my mid-30s to realize I actually didn’t. I actually wanted to write and direct and be more involved in politics and humanitarian issues.

I’ve got a great sense of humor, and if I’m able to say or do something in a movie that people feel like they want to repeat, that’s hugely flattering.

I know a lot of artists say this, but it’s hard to put myself in a box. I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming form a special place. There’s no tricks.

While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.

To rule children by force is the technique of Satan, not of the Savior.

I can’t pretend that I’m brave and that I can beat the whole world.

Jesus didn’t die for us so we could pretend to be something we’re not.

I only act from my heart.

Secretly we’re all a little more absurd than we make ourselves out to be.

It’s very important for Christians to be honest with God, which often, you know, God is much more interested in who you are than who you want to be.

If you want to get each individual’s honest opinion, you don’t want that opinion to be influenced by others who are present, much less allow a group to coordinate what they are going to say.

I will never say something I don’t agree with or believe in… even if the reward is massive!

Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.

Endorsements are a reward for good performance on the field, and the commitments made after signing them need to be done.

I wrote ‚Channel Orange‘ in two weeks. The end product wasn’t always that gritty, real-life depiction of the real struggle that happened.

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

My favorite movies of all times is ‚Doctor Zhivago,‘ and I love ‚Gone With the Wind.‘ I’d love to play some Southern belle or something where I owned a plantation.