Tyne Daly

“Love is as strict as acting. If you want to love somebody, stand there and do it. If you don't, don't. There are no other choices.”

“The director's job is full of all sorts of annoyances and details - like how many cars are on the street. Ugh. I don't want it. I like my gig. And I feel that for the next 30 years or so I can keep learning more about it.”

“I wish it was possible to do the work and not have to talk about it, but it is traditional in the theater to go into the village square and bang the drum and say, 'Come see this show, come see this show.'”

“My job always is to play a person, not to judge her.”

“In sixth and seventh grade, my two best friends and I pretended to be horses. Every day after school, we would gallop around, whinnying and stamping our hooves and tossing our manes - for hours.”

“I don't take part in texting and those other things myself, so I don't really know if people put as much thought into messaging as they used to into writing letters.”

“I never played the 'decoration,' I always played the one who suffered. And then I got very lucky in my middle career, when I started playing the hero, which at that point was quite rare for women.”

“Both my parents were actors. I was schooled to think that acting was an important social service, that it was something that human beings need.”

“I think the 20s are a vastly overrated decade. We promise kids that once they get out of school, life will begin and their dreams will come true. But then comes the struggle.”

“I don't have a waist: I'm a breadbox on top of legs.”

“I don't want people instructing me what to do with my body; I don't want the government to tell me what I can do in my bedroom, with my body, or with whoever I choose to love.”

“You know, my hair is very upsetting to people, but it's upsetting on purpose. It is important to look old so that the young will not be afraid of dying. People don't like old women. We don't honor age in our society, and we certainly don't honor it in Hollywood.”

“When I got married, my marriage was illegal in 17 states because my husband had a different skin color than I did. And we saw those laws go down one at a time.”

“I am pretty sure that all young human beings have, at one time or another in their growing-up, been actors. They have used their imaginations to carry them away from painful or confusing situations... have imagined themselves to be more powerful or beautiful or brave or loving than they are.”

“A critic is someone who never actually goes to the battle, yet who afterwards comes out shooting the wounded.”

“Many more people saw me on TV than will ever get to see me on stage, but I do love being in the same room as the people I'm telling the story to.”

“I do games of solitaire when I get home to quiet my spirits.”

“Women are usually only interesting to studio executives when they are fecund, between the ages of 15 and 30. I decided to get through the really tough patch, around 50, by just cutting my price and playing ten years older. I didn't want to have to wait until I was an old lady to play one.”

“I am a greedy actor in the sense that I like the big bites. Put a big fat steak in front of me, and I will eat it.”

“I went into the family business. To me, it was the norm and not the exception.”