Jessica Lange Quotes

I never felt like I belonged in Minnesota when I was growing up there. That's why I was out the door as soon as I turned 18.

The natural state of motherhood is unselfishness. When you become a mother, you are no longer the center of your own universe. You relinquish that position to your children.

When you learn not to want things so badly, life comes to you.

I regret those times when I've chosen the dark side. I've wasted enough time not being happy.

Moments of pure happiness...come upon you unexpectedly. Don't be too preoccupied to experience them.

Everything is transient. Everything is constantly changing. The only thing we have is now.

One of the things I love about acting is that it reveals a certain something about yourself, but it doesn't reveal your own personal story.

Don't be absent from your own life.

I've never been a sunny personality. I've never been outgoing. I'm a solitary person.

Acceptance and tolerance and forgiveness, those are life-altering lessons.

I am tortured when I am away from my family, from my children. I am horribly guilt-ridden.

I love men. I've always been drawn to poets, artists, and madmen. Sometimes all three in one

If Ive got a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt, thats usually a good day for me.

To work with a director that has emotional commitment and passion toward the characters, and the piece, and the experiences, it only enriches your work.

It's easy to judge, to think we know for certain the right thing to do. Sometimes, it just isn't so clear.

I have a life that's just been a well of loneliness.

I've got nothing left to lose at this point. The work I've done is out there.

To work on the actual location I think is great. This thing of going to Canada and pretending you're in New York, it's terrible.

For me, nothing has ever taken precedence over being a mother and having a family and a home.

I worked on my voice for 'Sweet Dreams' but only to match my speaking voice to Patsy's actual singing voice. That was my way into that character.

I've been thinking a lot about next year, which will be the first time in 25 years that I don't have a child at home.

I love being a mother. I loved being a daughter, a sister, a wife. I love being a woman with men. I love having given birth.

It is an embarrassing time to be an American. It really is. It's humiliating.

There was that feminist myth that we can do everything. I don't think you can.

Sometimes the odds are against you-the director doesn't know what the hell he's doing, or something falls apart in the production, or you're working with an actor who's just unbearable.

Allow the diversity to exist. There is nothing wrong with it. Hell, we put up with the religious right-we can put up with transgendered human beings.

I want to live my life with no goals anymore, but just completely free, like I did when I was younger.

All through life I've harbored anger rather than expressed it at the moment.

Successful model? That's a myth. The year I modeled was the most painful year of my life. Editors would always talk to you in the third person as though you were merely a piece of merchandise.

I never think of the future. I never imagine what comes next.

Families survive, one way or another. You have a tie, a connection that exists long after death, through many lifetimes.

I do love acting. But to work as a photojournalist would have been extraordinary.

I have been a waitress, and I was a damn fine waitress too, let me tell you.

Digital doesn't interest me. It's too many steps removed from the actual tactile thing. I still read books. I don't read online.

This idea of selfishness as a virtue, as opposed to generosity: That, to me, is unnatural.

To stay interested in acting, I have to keep trying stuff I've never done before.

If I had to start over, I'd pursue photography - probably to the exclusion of acting.

I never just slide through anything. I explore everything to the fullest, whether good or bad.

To my mind the election was stolen by George Bush and we have been suffering ever since under this man's leadership.

The thing with psychoanalysis is I know basically what happened in my childhood. I know where things went wrong and I know what my mother said at one point and what my father said at one point.

At a certain age, death becomes familiar to you-or a loss becomes familiar-the tragedies that are more commonplace in life.

I could be making a lot more money now if I had chosen a different kind of movie, but none of that matters to me... I've done the parts I wanted to do.

I had never done Shakespeare before, but I don't think you can be an actor and not do it. There were moments when I thought, I'm just not going to be able to pull this off.

I take a jazz class and I also take just a regular exercise class with a man who gives me acupressure treatments. It's just stretching and elongating the muscles.

I like to work in costumes, makeup, and hair that allow me tremendous freedom.

I have made decisions based from purely an actor's point of view.

Box office success has never meant anything. I couldn't get a film made if I paid for it myself. So I'm not 'box office' and never have been, and that's never entered into my kind of mind set.

There can be no better measure of our governance than the way we treat our children, and no greater failing on our part than to allow them to be subjected to violence, abuse or exploitation.

There are no explanations, there are no answers.

It took Sydney Pollack a long time to get me to do Tootsie. I asked myself if I wanted to play some frothy, ditzy character after I had just done Frances. Obviously, I'm thrilled that I did.