Liv Ullmann Quotations

If only we could accept that there is no difference between us where human values are concerned. Whatever sex.

Sometimes I get a little tired of it. But you know, what a privilege, to get tired of working with Ingmar Bergman.

The best thing that can come with success is the knowledge that it is nothing to long for.

We all need somebody to talk to. It would be good if we talked... not just pitter-patter, but real talk. We shouldn't be so afraid, because most people really like this contact; that you show you are vulnerable makes them free to be vulnerable.

Ibsen was Norwegian by birth, but universal in spirit.

The older one gets in this profession, the more people there are with whom one would never work again.

Only when he saw this face, and this actress, could he make the movie.

He doesn't want to see people anymore. I know he has isolated himself almost completely. He reads a lot and goes to his writing table every day. For a while I thought he was writing a new film, but I don't think so now. I'll have to take a little peek when I go out there.

The Summer Book is beautiful and warm, with the kind of wisdom we can adapt to our everyday lives.

Books have always been living things to me. Some of my encounters with new authors have changed my life a little. When I have been perplexed, looking for something I could not define to myself, a certain book has turned up, approached me as a friend would. And between it's cover carried the questions and the answers I was looking for.

Soon I will be an old, white-haired lady, into whose lap someone places a baby, saying, "Smile, Grandma!" - I, who myself so recently was photographed on my grandmother's lap.

Since suffering confers no rights on its victims, we who witness are the ones responsible for restoring these lost rights.

The void Papa's death left in me became a kind of cavity, into which later experiences were to be laid.

I believe that it is sometimes less difficult to wake up and feel that I am alone when I really am, than to wake up with someone else and be lonely.

If a person is found dead here, a postmorten will always reveal whether he has spent less than three weeks in the city. That is the length of time it takes this pollution to invade the body, after which it is there forever.

Hollywood is loneliness beside the swimming pool.

it is only in statistics that people die by the millions. Each person dies individually, in his own predicament.

Choice is the essence of what I believe it is to be human.

What I have always loved most in men is imperfection. I get moved by the wrinkles on the throat of a man. It makes me love him more. I think it is sad that more women don't take the chance that maybe men will be moved by seeing the chin a little less firm than it used to be, that a man will be more in love with his wife because he remembers who she was and sees who she is and thinks, God, isn't that lovely that this happened to her. And be moved by life telling its story there.

We who are alive at this moment are only an infinitesimal part of something that has existed for eternity and will continue when there is no longer anything to show that earth existed. Still, we must feel and believe that we are all.

I believe we come to earth with sealed orders. I believe that only those who lack passion look down on purpose.

I looked into the mirror and saw this middle-aged woman who keeps invading my face.

I do not want to arrive at the end of life and then be asked what I made of it and have to answer: 'I acted.' I want to be able to say: 'I loved and I was mystified. It was a joy sometimes, and I knew grief. And I would like to do it all again.'

Nothing ever comes to an end. Wherever one has sunk roots that emanate from one's best or truest self, one will always find a home.

It is only the untalented director who imagines him or herself in every part, wants his or her own thoughts and emotions portrayed; it is only the untalented who make their own limitations those of the actors as well.

I just think that sometimes it is less hard to wake up feeling lonely when you are alone than to wake up feeling lonely when you are with someone else. Some people would be better off alone, but they feel they've got to get hold of someone to prove they're worthwhile.

reality can be magnificent even when life is not.

The fear inside of loneliness: That only what others have is real.

Life experiences become acting experiences, which in turn become life experiences.

Oh, those wonder-filled evenings when acting enables me for a short moment to have more life.

I am learning that if I just go on accepting the framework for life that others have given me, if I fail to make my own choices, the reason for my life will be missing. I will be unable to recognize that which I have the power to change.

It's better to wake up alone knowing that you're alone, than waking up with someone and still be lonely

Nobody is one block of harmony. We are all afraid of something, or feel limited in something. We all need somebody to talk to. It would be good if we talked to each other, not just pitter patter but real talk. We shouldn't be afraid, because most people really like this contact; that you show you are vulnerable makes them free to be vulnerable too. It's so much easier to be together when we drop our masks.

I think of all the choices I never knew. And those I let be made for me - to please, from fear, for love. Where did they disappear to, those choices that I never made? They are all part of who I am. They are the legacy I leave behind, they are the finished portrait of myself I cannot change.

One of the things I like about my profession, and that I find healthy, is that one constantly has to break oneself to pieces.