Blythe Danner quotes:

I loved doing Shakespeare. My two favorite roles, in fact, have been Viola in Twelfth Night and Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Mostly, I spend my time being a mother to my two children, working in my organic garden, raising masses of sweet peas, being passionately involved in conservation, recycling and solar energy.

I think one of my very favorite films of all time was with Peter Sellers when he played Chauncey, the gardener. Being There.

I travel so much when I work, I've really been happy to do 'Nice Work' because I feel like a true New Yorker again. I have my little regimen during the day, and I can take advantage of the museums and the things that I love. And people watching!

My theory in anything you do is to keep exploring, keep digging deeper to find new stuff.

Just look at my face. Its an extraordinary experience. All of my friends who are grandparents have been saying, just wait, a bit cynically, but its just extraordinary. You feel like a child again yourself. Just walking on air.

You learn more discipline in the theatre than you do in movies or TV. You're on stage every night and you have to sustain your energy level tor several hours.

Being a grandmother is probably the most important thing to me. I have two really rambunctious little ones, and I love spending time with them.

Maybe subconsciously I've kept activism separate from acting because it's important to me in a more profound way.

Whether you're on TV or on the stage, you have to work hard to stay fresh, real, and full of energy. You can't settle back. You always have to stay on your toes.

Singing and dancing will never grow old for me - I'd like to do that until I'm... actually, I think I'd like to drop dead onstage. I think that'd be just great.

You cannot be the perfect wife, the perfect mother, and the perfect actor all at the same time.

I got to Broadway a year after I came to New York. I starred in 'Butterflies Are Free' and got a Tony for it. Right out of the gate. Maybe that's why I wasn't very gracious about it. I wasn't driven. And right after 'Butterflies Are Free', I got married and then started a family. I always wanted that.

I really do like being independent, and I don't want to have to rely on anyone else to cart me around if I break a bone.

My family was very musical. My brother is an opera singer; my parents both sang.

For a woman who's a widow and pretty much a loner, I can walk out, and I'm surrounded by NYU kids. The energy jumps off the sidewalks, and I never feel sad or bored.

I've always just adored music. It's my first love, really. I admire and respect people in the music business. You really have to work hard and diligently. Sometimes actors can be lazy and get away with it, but you can't do that if you're a musician.

I don't give my advice unless it's asked for.

We all have an obligation as citizens of this earth to leave the world a healthier, cleaner, and better place for our children and future generations.

I really pulled back on my career when the kids were young and my husband and I made a pact never to work while the other one was.

My earliest memories of Gwyneth first singing is in bed when we would make up songs. The most I could do was harmonize, like, a third above, and at two years old, she'd be doing sixths. I said, 'Where in the world did that come from?' She'd just make up songs.

That's what's so wonderful about being in this business because you're constantly surprised. You have to be up for anything.

I feel a little guilty only being an actor.

You live long enough, you lose enough people, you learn to appreciate the memories you have and stop begrudging the ones you never got to make.

I've always had a middling kind of a career, not great highs and great lows.

My husband was very special and very funny and outspoken, and he would have a black and blue every so often because under the table, I'd say, 'Don't say that!'

When I was beginning, a young actor could go from repertory company to repertory company. I did that and loved it. I was also lucky.

I feel that its our children who do give us hope because they are the ones who are going to save the world.

I was raised in a time where children were still seen and not heard basically, so I think a lot of us in my generation went the other way and just tried to be as much more liberal and open and we're still paying for it.

Film has always been hard for me, I'm basically a stage actress. I never felt comfortable in front of the camera.

I try to avoid a specific image. I seek to play as many different women as I can to avoid having a label put on me.

Onstage or in films, you do affect peoples' lives, and sometimes that's very gratifying. But still, there's this little voice that says you should be doing something that matters.

I think I have a lot of crazy layers.

Part of me says that no life will work if I can't make this one right.

It was in high school that I first became interested in acting. We put on lots of plays.

I've been very lucky. I wanted to be an actress, but I didn't really have the drive to sell myself. Fortunately I had a terrific agent in New York who kept me going from job to job.

Acting is really only part of my life. I'm addicted to it.

Actors are very generous.