Top 45 Quotes & Sayings by Patricia Clarkson

I just have a thing for writers. Maybe it because I'm just so not a writer.

If my gravy train stops at SAG, honey, it's been a great ride.

I love writers. All of my best friends are writers.

And now oddly I'm getting sexier parts than I've ever gotten.

And I have a really great agent and I know it's almost an oxymoron to say you have a smart agent. But she is and she has a beautiful aesthetic and she has guided me.

It's never easy with characters in these dark and grave circumstances but that's my job.

I don't like a lot of rehearsing.

See, the SAG awards caught me totally by surprise.

Holly Hunter has been doing great work forever.

Being married and having a child was not something I wanted, and I knew that at a very young age. I tend to be more solitary, and I'm truly a free spirit.

The odds of having films made which star women... Everyone still references one movie: 'Bridesmaids!'

I'm really a director's actor. I rely heavily on a director.

Parts that are desexed, matronly - to just put me in a couple of scenes and have me be the older, you know, dead character, is not gonna fly with me.

I think it's always harder in a film to convey intimacy.

When I was younger, of course I had people act inappropriately to me. I've had certain directors yell at me. But I didn't stand for it, and I didn't let it go far enough for it to be in any way abusive to me.

There are still so many movies made starring 50 men and one woman! A white male actor should never be allowed to complain about anything. Shut up and sit in the corner. I mean, seriously!

You're always close and you never get that big romantic lead.

I'm still traumatized that I'm going to be on a big screen in a white bikini and naked so who knows!

I think it kind of took being a character actor to kind of now enter into leading ladies.

New Orleans. Born and raised. I lived there until I was 19.

Well did graduate summa cum laude from Fordham University.

But I have had the luxury of working on good films with great people.

I have to watch the news or my day is not complete.

But no, had I been successful in my 20s I would have been just fine. But it is nice to defy the odds.

These archetypal older women in movies can sometimes make my skin crawl. It's about the one dimension; it's about the lack of any texture.

I always try to approach character first and foremost viscerally.

The odds are not in your favor the older you get, especially if you're a woman in this business.

The majority of work I do is in independent films, where you're lucky if you have five takes.

I think it would be hard to go the distance in this business without a sense of humor.

I'll read a script maybe twice, but I'll think about the role more than I'll rehearse lines.

I'm obsessed. I've always needed to know what's going on but now it's a must.

Why are comedic parts for women the exception, not the rule?

I think the beauty of chat rooms is that you can have your anonymity of course, and you can choose to be raunchy and sexy and bold. Or you can actually go into certain chat rooms and maybe have an incredibly soulful, meaningful conversation that will change your life or change the other person's life.

I have walked away from enormous amounts of money and I have made that life I have wanted somewhat in this business. I love doing independent film, I love doing theater, I love doing studio films, and I do all three now.

That's the hardest part of acting: when it is ultra-personal, when it is deeply personal, and there's no lying involved. You can't fake it, you can't get by it. This is dealing with the most primal instincts and emotions that a mother can have.

I really haven't joined the 20th or the 21st century yet. Someday. I'm getting closer. I have voicemail and a fax machine.

Even though I'm a free spirit, I like to keep my friends and my lovers separate. I have extraordinary friends, but I don't want to see them naked.

I have stunning friends. I value my friendships as I value my family.

I think every metropolitan city has its pockets of - that's what makes them great.

Talent is a very potent aphrodisiac. When someone is incredibly gifted, I find them incredibly sexy.

In 8th grade I started doing theatre and I remember it was as though I had taken a trip to a foreign land that I had never seen before yet felt completely at home. I remember feeling a genuine wave of happiness and of feeling complete.

I will say from the outset, I think if you're great, you're great from the very beginning. And because I do think it is innate and I do think it is a gift you just have, and I don't think you can - you can hone the skills of a director, but sadly, I do think that you are born a great director. I think it's just in you and it's something that is deep in you. But, I find it can be difficult working with first-time directors, but it's also moving.

I try to take off the rose-colored glasses and view it in all facets, but I probably would be lying if I didn't say that probably the way in for a film with me is the performance. But I have been on juries where you have to give Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography. So you do have to put on several different hats and I try to broaden my scope. And what's great is, when you're in a room full of people who are not your milieu, so to speak, you find yourself speaking in a way that you do discover a slightly discerning eye.

I like to think of myself as a free spirit. I've never married. I'm not conventional in that way. But I do like romance. I've been fortunate enough that I've had great love, and I've dated remarkable men in my life. I'm very thankful for all of that.

At the core, I am an actress. And I think, in a way, that's a good thing in that I am, I think, empathetic and sympathetic to the film. I would never pretend to have the discerning and acute critical eye that a lot of the great critics in our business do have. I don't look at it as being a critic or placing a judgment on a film, and I do think, how do you decide which film is best anyway? It's always a little bit of a mixed bag. But, I think it is just a collective group of people coming together to honor the work of an artist - that's how I think of it.