Good Acting Quotes (page 8)
There is nothing you can do that profit does not enter into, and fear of loss, and wish for power. You cannot say good morning without knowing which of you is 'superior' to the other, or trying to prove it. You cannot act like a brother to other people, you must manipulate them, or command them, or obey them, or trick them. You cannot touch another person, yet they will not leave you alone. There is no freedom.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The tricks that work on others count for nothing in that very well-lit back alley where one keeps assignation with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions. One shuffles flashily but in vain through one's marked cards- the kindness done for the wrong reason, the apparent triumph which involved no real effort, the seemingly heroic act into which one had been...
Joan Didion
There is no such thing as pure good or pure evil, least of all in people. In the best of us there are thoughts or deeds that are wicked, and in the worst of us, at least some virtue. An adversary is not one who does loathsome acts for their own sake. He always has a reason that to him is justification. My cat eats mice. Does that make him bad? I don't think so, and the cat doesn't think so, but I would bet the mice have a different opinion.
Terry Goodkind
He wasn't into one-night stands, he wasn't into scoring just to see if he could, he wasn't into acting just charming enough to get what he wanted before cutting loose in favor of someone new and attractive. He just wasn't like that. He would never be like that. When he met a girl, the first question he asked himself wasn't whether she was good for a few dates; it was whether she was the kind of girl he could imagine spending time with in the long haul.
Nicholas Sparks
Always have a purpose,' his father used to tell him. 'Act like you're heading someplace purposeful, and none of the low-life will mess with you.' He had also said, 'Never trust a man who starts his sentences with "Frankly,"' and 'Nine tenths of a good sidearm pitch is in the flick of the wrist,' and 'If you want to sell a person something, look off elsewhere as you're speaking, not straight into his eyes.
Anne Tyler
. . I have come to revere words like "democracy" and "freedom," the right to vote, the incomprehensibly beautiful origins of my country, and the grandeur of the extraordinary vision of the founding fathers. Do I not see America's flaws? Of course I do. But I now can honor her basic, incorruptible virtues, the ones that let me walk the streets screaming my ass off that my country had no idea what it was doing in South Vietnam. . . . I have come to a conclusion about my country that I knew...
Pat Conroy