I love books.
The joy we get as actors is out of transforming ourselves into something that’s not necessarily anything true to ourselves. And it’s a power – not being yourself, and being in the role; it’s just like another prop.
[on the movie business] The battles that we face in this business aren’t financial, but they are moral. And I certainly think that the longer you can keep your values, and your morality intact, and keep your head on your shoulders about what is important at the end of the day, you can get the most out of this business and really emerge with something wonderful.
[asked about the ways she is discriminated against] I get discriminated against in three ways: I get discriminated against because I’m blond, I get discriminated against because I’m an actress and I get discriminated against because I’m from the South.
I think everyone has their own set of problems, and sometimes I feel I’m in the middle of the biggest challenge of my life just trying to maintain normalcy in a kind of crazy lifestyle.
[on Ryan Phillippe] I’m lucky to find a person to share my life, and the best friend I’ll ever have.
I read while the kids play. I can see them from the kitchen window. And I’m a fast reader.
A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must lay it down and commence living on its hint… What I began by reading I must finish by acting.
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookshelf on the wall.
I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.
Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him to the public.
Books are the best of things if well used; if abused, among the worst. They are good for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system.
I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.
The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.
Never judge a book by its movie.
When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.
Books are the mirrors of the soul.
Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.
Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it. – Vronksy (Anna Karenina)
There are books which take rank in your life with parents and lovers and passionate experiences, so medicinal, so stringent, so revolutionary, so authoritative.
