Shirley Knight Quotations

The only people you can really share certain things with in secret are your girlfriends.

There are things that you cannot talk to your mother and father about, there are things that you cannot talk to your children about.

This house was our dream-the gardens, the study, even the swimming pool. Even though I can't see John when I wake up in the morning, I can always feel him here with me.

My acting career helped pull me through the rough times.

I'm writing a book and working on my one-woman show, Learning To Be Human.

Film actors reach a certain level, but they don't get beyond it unless they work in the theater.

I did the occasional odd film, like Endless Love.

I got an agent and went up for the part of my first film, Five Gates to Hell.

I just let the character speak to me and things appear.

I moved to LA and decided to do films and television, mainly because the theater in New York is totally dead.

I took individual photographs of Annie Liebovitz, I kept taking her picture.

It's no accident that Tony Hopkins is a wonderful film actor.

Men are allowed to get older and women are not.

My goal was not to be famous or rich but to be good at what I did. And that required going to New York and studying and working in the theater.

So many directors are solely focused on their own success in Hollywood and multimillion dollar budgets and deals.

The thing that separates a so-so director and a great director is a love and caring for film.

There's a great difference between being popular and being an artist.

There's no place to act in Kansas. You're supressed.

They said this is Vanity Fair, and I said, Oh, I already take the magazine. They said Annie Leibovitz wants to take your picture and I thought, How nice!

When you're a woman in your 40s, it's not the best time to do films, because there really aren't that many roles. Then you reach 50 and there are more roles again. Mother parts.

I did a whole bunch of really bad movies.

I don't think you want her around too often, she kind of takes over,

My career has been odd in the sense that I did a lot of films early in my career and then for years I only worked in the theater in New York.

The play is about this woman finding a way to live without having someone to look after her.

Everyone has someone in their family who has a drinking problem. I think that's inevitable. Everybody quarrels in a family, and they don't speak to each other for months or years. It's usually always over some little thing. But it really isn't about some little thing, it's about something much deeper.

I instinctively knew that if I only did films I'd probably become a movie star and earn a lot of money but I wouldn't be a great artist.

I know that Marcia desperately wants me to come back. We were devising all kinds of scenarios together, like Bree breaks her leg and I would look after her and that would drive her insane.

I plan to work ever day they'll let me.

Hollywood -- that's where they give Academy Awards to Charlton Heston for acting.

The other death for an actor is comparing yourself to other people: Forget someone else's path. Concentrate on your path. Otherwise, you get lost, and if you don't have joy in the work, forget it.