Top 103 Quotes & Sayings by Mariette Hartley - Page 2

I'd make a terrible therapist.

I've always done challenging pieces.

I can't lose my spontaneity.

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.

NBC President Fred Silverman told me he would change my life, and proceeded to offer me a five to seven-year contract to replace Jane Pauley as co-host of 'The Today Show.'

I have tried very hard to sing. I've taken a lot of lessons. I've always wanted to. It's always been my dream.

The casting-couch routine has been going on for ages, from top directors to the lowliest agents. I had to attend a meeting where four actresses filed complaints against the same person over his moral conduct. It's not a funny situation.

The problem with 'Today' was whether it was an entertainment show. Tom Brokaw and I had that battle for three weeks. He's a purist, and I was brought in for entertainment.

It hasn't been easy for me to get roles in movies after so much exposure on television. There's an anathema about TV, and breaking away from it is difficult for almost everybody.

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.

I didn't know anything about 'Star Trek.' I was doing theater a lot in those days, getting my life together. I didn't watch television. So, to come in on it was a really amazing experience.

For me, that is what my mission seems to be in my life on earth - to be awake, to stay awake, and to bring a certain kind of consciousness to the world, and to myself.

Success in a career sometimes comes in strange ways. You grab it in whatever way it happens.

I always tell kids, in high school or acting students, to do something else around acting, or not around it, just in your life that is of service.

There are problems in Canada. There is a certain inconsistency in the acting. I don't mean to sound chauvinistic, but we do have a larger supply of good actors in Hollywood. There are good actors in Canada, but not as wide a choice.

I really began to feel that the minute I started becoming successful, somebody would die.

I'm a firm believer in therapy.

I've never done a musical before. I've sung, off and on, all of my life. But I have never, ever done a musical.

What took some time for me to figure out was how to have a life outside my career, to find a way to be inclusive rather than exclusive. It came only after years of psychotherapy and deep soul-searching.

I've been keeping journals since I was a kid.

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.

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 feel my free-est when I don't know where I'm going, when I'm not scripted, and doing crazy things.

A lot of people in show business don't know what I'm capable of doing.

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

Nobody knew I could do comedy until I started Polaroid.

I love comedy. That's what I really look forward to doing. Enough of this heavy drama.

I've tried to tone down some of my peppiness, but for those who don't like it, just as many do like it.

My happiest moments are when I'm on my high wire with the Johnny Carsons of the world. I don't have that opportunity if I'm doing other people's scripts.

I've never had a homosexual or bisexual experience, but it doesn't make me uncomfortable to dip into those feelings. I think a lot of women have those feelings without acting on them.

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's what Kitty Carlisle said in her book: Don't interview people about what they do, interview them about what they love. I want my interviews to come out of the side pockets.

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

What people don't realize is that I've been trying to get to Bethlehem since I was four years old. By that, I mean I've been trying to attain perfection since I was kid. And it took me more than 40 years to learn that it wasn't going to happen.

My career was one mistake after another. I was working a lot, but nothing was building, it wan't going toward anything.

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

After I played the frigid doctor on the 'Peyton Place' series, all I got for a long while was offers for more frigid doctor parts.

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

It was a joy to do something sensual and sexy. It was exciting. I don't get many of those types of roles.

When you sing, you're releasing so much more than you are when you're speaking. You risk more as a singer.

Grief is not graceful.

A few good compliments produce a wealth of good and often financial benefits.

I was uncomfortable because I had never been that nude before. I had never shown my legs, and never shown quite that much skin. I always played frigid doctors or the plain sisters who got the guy at the end. What did I know from ladies in caves who ate only meat? And when the outfit came in, I never thought of myself that way. I mean, I always thought of myself as having my father's chest. I was very self-conscious.