Sally Field Quotations

I really have no ulterior motive in taking on certain roles. I have no larger issue that I really want to show people. I'm an actor, that's all. I just do what I do.

You just do the best you can with what you've got... and sometimes magic strikes.

But I was losing so much bone density that I would have been in grave danger. And I mean grave danger. If I had let it go just a few more years I could have broken my hip or spine just picking up my granddaughter

I've never had my heart broken. It's a very sad state of affairs. I think everybody should have their heart broken. I don't think it says anything good about me at all.

I can't deny the fact that you like me! You like me!

When I was born, the doctor looked at my mother and said, 'Congratulations, you have an actor!'

There are parts of me that I feel are beautiful, but they don't have anything to do with my nose.

'Forrest Gump' is filled full of moments where your heart just cheers.

I was raised to sense what someone wanted me to be and be that kind of person. It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else's eyes.

It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else's eyes.

I so believe that older women have tremendous value to their families, their community, their country, the world.

I wouldnt mind having my heart broken because it would mean that I had that much feeling connected to somebody. And that would be really great.

In the 1970s and 1980s, I got to do some great work. The Oscars are really nice, but the best part is that I had the opportunity to do that kind of work.

I think that's very sad, that I haven't allowed my heart to be broken. I have broken a few.

My agent said, 'You aren't good enough for movies.' I said, 'You're fired.

I grew up in a show-business family, but we were working-class show business. There was nothing glamorous about it. You had great things one day and the next day, nothing.

When you're old, you are more certain of who you are, and that may be a good thing or a bad thing.

I never really address myself to any image anybody has of me. That's like fighting with ghosts.

If I hadn't fought back, I might have been Gidget forever.

You can't help but feel all the human-rights issues.

I had to let my ego go a long time ago.

I wanted to be Katharine Hepburn-ish - there was a bit of nobility about her.

The Oscars are really nice, but the best part is that I had the opportunity to do that kind of work.

The roles... the deep roles that I've gotten to play have turned my course. They've changed my life experience.

I was shaking all over. I didn't like it and I felt that way when we shot the sequences, but I thought my character felt that way.

I was raised to sense what someone wanted me to be and be that kind of person.

I'd been kind of a hiccup in my parents' lives. They lost track of me and I didn't know what I was going to do with myself. And then fate reached in and took me in its hands. I was discovered right out of high school and started getting work.

Goldie is like a neon light and I am not.

The only thing that matters to me is getting to the work - getting to do the work. And I don't really care where it is: whether it's on stage or on television or in film.

Last year I was diagnosed with osteoporosis. I was over 50, Caucasian, thin, small-framed, and I have it in my genetic history. It was almost a slam-dunk.

You lose your habitual behavior, which allowed you to sort of zone out. You have to be here, you have to be now, you have to be present.

I've never held a gun. I've never shot a gun. I don't ever want to do it again.

I've never been an actor who goes and really gets off on being nuts and never gets out of it. There would be times when I would be crying for hours and hours and hours, but mostly they were in and out of the picture. There were times to go hide and times to come out and play.

I've allowed myself to be so busy with my grandchildren, my sons, and my family, and work, that I really don't know where I would fit anyone in.

It's put ... together into a cohesive, chronological line of events.

I never really address myself to any image anybody has of me. That's like fighting with ghosts.

You know, people really don't understand what actors do.

I don't want to look old and worn, but what can you do? My real focus is being an actor. I care more about having the opportunity to play roles that I haven't played than I care if my neck looks like someone's bedroom curtains.

I've done some good work and some not-good work.

I have never been beautiful in cliche terms.

I certainly have a very colorful nature, filled with great highs and great lows... in my early adulthood I probably was grappling with some serious depression issues.

Acting has been my lover and best friend. My confidant and my tormentor. It has given me support and broken my heart and mended it.

I haven't had an orthodox career.

Don't you be afraid, sweetheart. Death is just a part of life, something we're all destined to do.

I always wanted to be a great actor.

Get over it. Get on with your life.

If you have the opportunity to play these characters that are three-dimensional and very deeply rooted in an emotional level, they stay with you. They lived in you anyway, the density of them. It takes a while to realize how they've influenced you.

I started to repeat to myself "If I'm not where I want to be, it's because I'm not good enough... yet." Which meant it was up to me.

Never, ever, have I felt really accepted in Hollywood.

Fear is where the information is.

In reality, people are people. Age does a weird thing to your body on the outside. It makes your face fall and weird things happen all over. But inside, you're the same person you always were.

I'm highly emotional, so I'm highly aware of humiliation.

I find that’s one of the great things about acting-you have the opportunity to stand in somebody else’s shoes. Each character faces a dilemma in her life, and as an actor you’re able to step into that character’s skin, look through her eyes. You leave transformed, a different person, because once you live a little bit of someone’s life, it changes you.

Change is never easy.

All people want on this earth is to connect with others. Other than eating and sleeping. Human beings need to connect with other human beings. Otherwise, they lose their mind.

The bad thing about being with an actor is that the role he's in stays with him all the time. The good thing about being with an actor - well, I can't think of any good thing.

For almost every character I've played in the 43 years I've been working as a professional actor, I've found parts of myself. We are all bipolar in the tiniest essence of what it is. We are all multiple personalities, in a sense, and to be healthy mentally, I think, learning what those multiple personalities are and inviting them in your life is really important.

There's always been a shortage of roles for three-dimensional women, no matter what age. If you look at the statistics on women in film, be they behind the camera or in front of the camera, and it's pretty nauseous-making. It always has been.

Last year I was diagnosed with osteoporosis.

There was really a snobbery from people in film - they did not want people who had come from television. It was the poor relation of show business, and especially situation comedy.

There were the days when women were under contract, and they were thought of as a commodity, so they hired the best writers and a lot of them were women at the time. This was in the thirties and forties, to make product for the people who were under contract, who were their assets to the studios. But that doesn't exist anymore - and as a result, the people who are in the industry write products that interest them.

The opportunities I've had to play really complex characters - which haven't been a lot, but some - you never get over them.

I mean, the only thing that matters to me is getting to the work - getting to do the work. And I don't really care where it is: whether it's on stage or on television or in film.

I've had such an odd career.

I'm so vigorous, and I so take it for granted, because I've always been a real physical person.

I'm looking for a bunch of new tchotchkes that represent the new part of my life.

Don't think for one minute, whoever you are, that you're not important. You're so vitally important to stand up and be heard and do what it is you do.

I was just lucky enough to grow up in a time when they actually had drama departments in schools.

I think the first thing I did was several scenes from Romeo and Juliet.

Like a jerk, I went to a nutritionist and I ate the most repulsive, awful things. I didn't allow myself to eat chocolate cake and french fries and cheeseburgers.

I really like cable T.V.

I joined the Actors Studio and began to work with Lee Strasberg, and that changed my work.

There are some actors who are my contemporaries who I think of as purebreds and I'm not.

I did comedies for 10 years and I learned a great deal.

I would take plays and I would cut out all the other dialogue and make long monologues because I felt the other kids weren't taking it as seriously as I did.

If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn’t be any God-damned wars in the first place!

I am such a notorious hermit - almost pathological. And, I'm not a hoarder. But that's just a symptom of things that I do feel.

People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?

I came from a real working-class show business family.

I think when you're reaching outside of something you're comfortable doing, you're just heading towards a light. I don't think you stop to justify it.

My last son is leaving to go to college; my grandchildren are being born. My mother is living with me.

I've never had my heart broken.

I have a tendency to think of myself as the mutt of the litter. I'm not purebred.

What does the Academy Award mean? I don’t think it means much of anything.

And I realized that sometimes the greatest triumphs in your life come in on little cat feet and sit on silent haunches and it's up to you to see it before it moves on.

When you have kept yourself isolated, no one relates to you, you have no way of understanding actually who you are.

You like me, You really like me!!!

Motherhood is given the brush-off in our society. 'Oh, I'm just a mom,' you hear women say. 'Just' a mom? Please! Being a mom is everything. It's mentorship, it's inspirational, it's our hope for the future.

But there isn't any second half of myself waiting to plug in and make me whole. It's there. I'm already whole.

You try to get rid of the things that are weighing you down.

I haven't had an orthodox career, and I've wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn't feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!

The whole world is waiting. The whole world needs you.

Western Costume, and the old Universal wardrobe that is huge and they're getting rid of so much of it now, which is sad.

I didn't back into being an actor, I was born one.

You may be a little older, or a little more neurotic, or a little more closed off. But inside, you're just the same.

Louis Armstrong said you have to live a life. And that's right. If you don't live a life, you don't got nothin' to come out your horn.

To watch how lovingly your children parent their own children is to know profound achievement.

Had there not been a Mary Todd, there would not have been an Abraham Lincoln. She found him when he was a young lawyer and really a bumpkin. No one knew of him, but she recognized his brilliance.

Quit thinking about your weight and start thinking about your worth and who you are and what you haven't done yet. What you want to accomplish.

I'm an actor. I'm trying to be the character and do what they're doing.