Marian Seldes

“An actress spends a lifetime observing people. You build up a mental library. No, not a library. Make that a repository.”

“I always think of myself as an 18-year-old beginning my career, all the time.”

“I have had a career in which, almost without exception, every single person I've worked with has helped me.”

“There's no trick of teaching acting. Either someone wants to do it and is gifted, or not.”

“I would hate to think of the theatre world without critics. Without them, we'd not have the record of each season.”

“I'm not a good tourist. I don't like walking around and looking at things. I like being in a city and working and finding out how other people live.”

“I know I'm funny, because I'm eccentric, I'm odd. I'm not what you expect.”

“I try to find humor in everything I do, because I think all great plays - even great tragedies - have enormous humor in them.”

“I've never been obsessed by how I looked. In fact, I would rather have looked more ordinary so I could play more parts more truthfully.”

“I think the first time I was ever really conscious of the difference between people's voices was that my mother's voice was so soft and gentle and her pronunciation was so perfect.”

“If you're unhappy in a relationship, I think you just don't trust yourself for getting into another one.”

“I grew up in a house where language was appreciated and cared about. I'm sure that, although I wasn't aware of it at the time, it must have made an impression on me.”

“How do people who live utterly alone survive? There are so many things that won't open. I've got a few dresses in New York, and I can somehow get them on, but I can't get them off.”

“Theatre is where I am confident and happy.”

“I'm fairly obedient. I do what I'm told.”

“All I've done is live my life in the theater and loved it.”

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

“I almost never go to the theatre without seeing someone I've taught or known at Juilliard.”

“Acting takes so much energy.”

“The kind of acting I love is when you watch and you discover what you think perhaps you weren't supposed to see: the chink in the armor.”