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.

Be present. I would encourage you with all my heart just to be present. Be present and open to the moment that is unfolding before you. Because, ultimately, your life is made up of moments. So don't miss them by being lost in the past or anticipating the future.

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

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.

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

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

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.

As an actor, you have to have trust and believe that somebody is taking care of you or watching your back. With a part like this, especially with where we're going with it, I can't pull any punches. I can't do it halfway, especially when you're dealing with madness and this descent into madness.

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.

What I love about photography, and it's the same thing I love about acting, really, is that it forces you, like, right into the moment, where you can't be distracted, where you can't be, like, thinking about other things or ahead of yourself or behind yourself.

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.

American Horror Story re-energized me; it re-energized my career. There’s no shame in recognizing that. It’s exposed me to a whole new generation, which is a little strange. I’m not used to young people thinking I’m cool.

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

The only place I've felt was really my home is my cabin up north. There's something in the water there that connects me to that place. There's also this sense of isolation and loneliness about it that I've never been able to shake.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

For me, acting was always a way to explore emotions - to dip into the well and really try to reach rock bottom down there. That was the most exciting part of it. I hadn't found anything that really allowed me to do that until I came upon acting.

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

There's something magical still about it when I get in a darkroom, and you've shot a roll of film and you develop it and you look at your negatives, and there's like imagery there. That always stuns me.

So much of my sense of who I am is tied to mothering. When they left home, I fell into a huge, empty, black hole. Your children are grown and your career has slowed down - all the stuff that took up so much attention is gone, and you're left with expansive time and space.

My one big regret was that there were no scenes that I could play with Eva Marie Saint. I hounded them. I said figure out some way, I just want to play a scene with this woman. But there was no way to make it work.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

That's always been like a fascination to me - watching my family, three sisters and a brother and all growing up basically in the same situation and each one being so totally different and going on to completely different areas and directions. But for me to go into psychoanalysis really steadily, would be putting too much energy into trying to figure out why I am the way I am... Basically this is how I am and it's alright and I don't want to know why I'm this way.

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.

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.