Mariette Hartley

“I don't think anyone thought showbiz people know anything. I would suggest interview subjects, were told they weren't such great ideas, and then they would be assigned to somebody else. I wasn't given anything to do. I felt like the highest-paid dress extra in the world.”

“Our deepest wounds when integrated become our greatest power.”

“I'm not a compulsive worker, and I've never been a workaholic, so if I have a three-week vacation, I don't want to do a movie-of-the-week.”

“I think I've proven that I'm issue-oriented and I'm not apolitical. But I'm not a journalist and I don't want to be one with that veneer exterior.”

“But I will say that TV was a great education for me. It allowed me to develop techniques for getting the job done. It's the best training ground since B movies.”

“Both Mom and Dad were blackout, killer drinkers. Dad came to school football games drunk. I'd find Mom passed out in the bushes, scared and hiding.”

“I loved the feeling of pressure that you can get in Hollywood.”

“Once we make the commitment to help ourselves, we are able to help others - and the universe supports our commitments.”

“It was a stumbling career at best before the Polaroid commercials. I think they definitely, if there's a word to use, focused - pardon the pun, 'cause I don't mean it that way - my career.”

“It was a struggle to find myself. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. There were too many defeats. I finally admitted defeat and went into therapy.”

“I'm in the public eye, so I have a responsibility as an actress to my generation. I think that's what acting's all about.”

“I'm at my best when I'm thrown, even though I don't like to be thrown.”

“My father was a very strong male figure to me as a child. He was very dashing, had a wonderful sense of humor and was romantically handsome in the Scott Fitzgerald genre.”

“I had married, had a child. I was content to stay at home. I had let go of the fantasy of stardom.”

“When you are shooting a movie in a week, there's not much time to travel.”

“It's much easier to do a TV series because an actress can stay put.”

“I really don't know how women in television news do the job. It's a very male-oriented business.”

“Tom Brokaw has been criticized for not being patient enough with me. But, in his defense, he is a news purist, and what he does is absolutely right for him. When we were thrown together, there was the matter of an actress coming in to do the news. I was missing the camera, not reading very well - there was a lot of stuff I had to get used to.”

“Film taught me an enormous amount about the internal life a performance has to have, and that life has to be real. You can fake it on stage, but not for the camera.”

“I wanted to put my present joy in the context of all the past pain, to show that there really is light at the end of the tunnel.”