Glenn Close Quotations

Acting, to me, is about the incredible adventure of examining the landscape of human heart and soul. That's basically what we do.

It always amazes me to think that every house on every street is full of so many stories; so many triumphs and tragedies, and all we see are yards and driveways.

The best thing I have is the knife from Fatal Attraction. I hung it in my kitchen. It's my way of saying, Don't mess with me.

Bunny boiler is now part of our language, and I'm proud of that.

I had a great time on The Shield. From working on it I have a totally different view of law enforcement.

With the hugely talented women I've worked with or observed, it's not a question about temperament or ego; it's a question about getting it right. If they've got a reputation for being difficult it's usually because they just don't suffer fools.

I think the diva is kind of a cliche. My definition of a diva is somebody whose talent does not match what they're trying to play, so all this temperament comes out.

There's something about a catharsis that is very important.

I really think that effective acting has to do literally with the movement of molecules.

There are a lot of big spec houses now all across Connecticut, a lot of ostentatious showing of wealth.

I don't like public venues. I never know what to wear.

Good roles are hard to find no matter what age.

I don't think the tabloids find me very interesting.

I think there are certain actors that have that kind of energy about them, that taking over a room energy.

Ismail Merchant was just the most seductive, passionate, outrageous, driven, genius of a man.

You have to love the characters you play, even if no one else does.

I knew the term Stepford Wife, and I knew what that meant. I never read the book, and I think before I started filming I watched the movie. I thought it was very dated.

I've been sacrificing my life for my work for 30 years, and now I want it the other way around. I want to find work that fits into my life and that would be based here.

Celebrity is death - celebrity - that's the worst thing that can happen to an actor.

I am extremely shy. I am not happy in crowds of people.

I get bored talking about myself, but I can talk about the work.

As an actor, I go where the good writing is. That's the bottom line.

I never got into this business thinking I'd be like a movie star.

It puts you in a kind of a strange situation where everybody is looking at every little thing you do.

It's not good to be in a situation where people don't want to direct you or don't want to question something.

I find it quite amusing that I can frighten children by just saying, Puppies. Usually they're disappointed I don't actually have black and white hair.

I thought it was astounding that a woman was censured for wanting to just take up photography. I thought, my, how the world has changed.

in no way, holds you responsible for what happened to Troy.

I don't think my characters are all awful and horrible. There are reasons for their behaviour. I have to find what makes them human.

I don't live in Hollywood. I try to live a quiet life. I don't go out to a lot of events, and I don't go out buying a lot of clothes.

I'm fascinated by the First World War because it was supposed to be the war to end all wars, and it was the biggest conflagration that this particular planet had seen. There was a lot of talk about utopia and how it was possible, and then, because of these events that for one reason or another couldn't be stopped, the idea of utopia went out the window.

So I think things are going to get closer and closer to each other, because the screens will force that to happen. I think there are a lot of movies that people will only see on their computers or their iPods.

As far as the difference for me between television and movies, I really thrill to the pace of television. As exhausting as it can be - there was actually one day when we never went to bed.

I left the studio at 5:30 in the morning. It's an incredible mind exercise. You have to, obviously, have stamina, but you really feel like you're kind of feeding your mind. It's a challenge of learning lines very fast and then you have to be lose enough to hopefully make good choices in a much shorter amount of time that it takes to film certain scenes.

And when you're with a great crew like we had, it becomes a thrilling, again, collaboration, which is to me one of the great aspects of the process that you go through. I find myself at this point in my career, getting potentially, incredibly bored if I stand around a lot, so that's why I really like the pace of television.

So I'm always inspired by my fellow actors. And that's kind of a constant for me. I have huge respect for our profession and our craft. And I seek in my work to create connections, first for me with the character and then the character with the other actors, and then ultimately, all of us together connecting with the audience in a way that sometimes is subliminal, even.

Just play the moment, that's the fun of it. You just play the moment. It's great writing and very clever writing, I think it's witty. And I have those great clothes. You have a great, witty, intelligent script and you look like a million dollars, because we have a great costumer, and it's a pretty good place to begin.

When you're on the set, and sometimes, because it's been so complex and the writers have been really writing, sometimes up until the last minute and you kind of sit back; you separate yourself from your brain, and you say, let me see if you can do this. And that's the kind of challenge I like.

When you're playing a man, you can look tired and horrible and you still look okay. As a woman, if you're tired, it's terrible. It was such a luxury not having to worry about that.

And those moments that I find mind busting. Meaning like there's a word that I find in a weird place. I love the process of going to the writer and working that out, because that's just basic communication.

So you have the challenge of just learning the lines, period, and not only learning them, but learning them to the extent that you assimilate them, so that you're not worried about what the next word is coming out of your mouth when it comes to doing a scene. And you're also in the trenches with the writers, just in the wonderful kind of back and forth of how is it best to say something, even if it involves four or five words. I love that kind of thing.

I'm an actor, that's my contribution.

There used to be a huge snobbism between the film industry and the television industry. I produced and acted in my first - well way back - but the first thing that I produced and acted in was Sarah, Plan and Tall. And the only place to go at the time for really quality television was Hallmark Hall of Fame. And think how much television has changed since then.

I love histories. I love learning. I love books that talk about people who made a real impact on history, because it always has to do with who they were at that time and what their personalities were like and what their strengths and weaknesses were.

We were fortunate enough to have several good books detailing the camps and the women. Some were by the survivors. I also got to talk to some of the women who had been in the camp, survivors.

When you learn how much bycatch comes from shrimp [and how destructive it is] - I'm not going to eat shrimp anymore.

When I hear that somebody's difficult, I think, Oh, I can't wait to work with them.

When they tested Fatal Attraction, the audiences were so upset by her behavior, they literally demanded her blood.

People think that the ocean is big enough to sustain anything we throw at it - its hard to get into your head that it's actually finite.

I've distilled everything to one simple principle: win or die!

I grew up with a house full of dogs. My mother was a great nature lover and taught us to have almost a religious sense of respect for the natural world.

Diva has a negative connotation.

I never wanted to be a man. I feel sorry for them.

What's so fascinating about people is what they don't show. People are masters at it; usually actors show too much.

I don't have the body or the face for romantic comedies, so I've never been offered those. The challenge is that a lot of people see you only as your last character, so you're constantly competing with whatever your last movie was.

Taking power away from a man is a dangerous thing. Someone always pays.

I love Ron Howard, he's a wonderful director, incredibly prepared. But I have to criticize my performance in that movie. It all took place in one day. My character was having a bad day, so she's having a bad day throughout the whole movie. But this was a comedy, and I think I was too serious, too dense. Yes, I think that describes my failure there.

I think having pets helps sensitize people to the natural world.

Good live theater disturbs molecules. You create an energy source around yourself and it alternates between you and the audience. Anybody who sees live theater should come out a little rearranged.

I've often been mistaken for Meryl Streep, although never on Oscar night.

I've always felt that an independent film is a film that almost doesn't get made.

I had a dresser who literally squeezed me in like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind.

I'm not a natural ocean person. I married into a family of swimmers, and I've slowly been drawn into the sea.

I think our family is like a lot of families. We had no vocabulary for mental illness

I've found myself getting more and more cynical about what's happening to the planet - it makes me furious.

I have the belief that truly evil people, it's a genetic evil. I only have the experience of exploring the landscape of some of the characters I've played that people have labeled as evil; I don't think they're evil.

It is very difficult for girls. They're told to look one way, but to act another way.

Be aware of your inner voice and follow it, even though most of the time it will tell you the most uncomfortable path to choose.

It's gotten out of control. It's taking bigger and bigger names to make smaller and smaller films. I worry that important films without a big name attached won't get made at all.

I love the chemistry that can be created onstage between the actors and the audience. It's molecular even, the energies that can go back and forth. I started in theater and when I first went into movies I felt that my energy was going to blow out the camera.

Robin [Williams] was a world treasure. As we mourn his tragic death, we must remember him for the great waves of laughter that he was able to illicit from us, how his humor and insights - though they came from a place of pain and uncertainty - connected us and reminded us of how flawed and fragile...how human we are. How we are capable of moments of inspired transcendence and others of unspeakable despair.

We have to be vulnerable as actors, but we have to protect ourselves.

And the writers are good in that it's easy to memorize, and good writing has an innate rhythm to it. And I've always felt that it's easier to get in your head than writing that has very kind of mind busting moments.

In a recent issue of Parade Magazine when asked for "Advice for a Younger You," Glenn Close responded: "I'd tell myself to listen to my heart. Listen to that little voice that says, 'Mmm, I don't think so.' Because when you override that, you basically override who you are.

All your life you think 60 is ancient, and all of a sudden you find you're 60 and you don't really feel that different. I feel stronger and more engaged. This is the best time of my life.

I think every pet lover has an appreciation for nature - I've never met an animal lover who didn't have some kind of connection to the natural world.

I think there's something thrilling about going into a movie house and seeing everything on such a huge screen. I think we're in a culture now that is confronted with various sizes of screens, the biggest movie houses and then the smallest iPods.

I think Cruella is evil, because she's the devil. But all the other characters, I was able to find a common humanity with them somewhere, knowing where they're most fragile, where they're most vulnerable, knowing some of the things that happened to them that might have formed this kind of behavior.

I think everybody wants to connect. There is nothing worse than feeling disconnected. And stories that really move people and make people care are the ones where they feel some sort of connection.

I also have always felt that television has a huge potential for the kinds of audiences that some films would never dream or ever be able to have. So that potential is very exciting to me.

I really hope it engenders a lot of conversation because I believe there are a lot of people who put on faces. We all do it, every time we walk out the door. And there are a lot of people who have to hide who they are. And I think this story speaks to that.

Because as an actor, I really feel you cannot judge a character. You have to totally commit to that character. And for me to totally commit to the character, I have to find those places where I understand the sequence of behavior.

A huge part of real love is constant forgiveness.

What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, more unashamed conversation.

My fellow actors inspire me a lot and really good writing inspires me. And then trying to stick to the decision to only do something that I think will challenge me and that I, personally and very subjectively, I think is good not do something because I think it will bring me a lot of money or bring me a lot of awards. I've tried to very, very rigorously be highly subjective about what I do. And that's something that I think I have basically lived by.

The mentally ill frighten and embarrass us. And so we marginalize the people who most need our acceptance. What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, more unashamed conversation.

It is an odd paradox that a society, which can now speak openly and unabashedly about topics that were once unspeakable, still remains largely silent when it comes to mental illness

All great art comes from a sense of outrage.