Susan Sarandon quotes:

I look forward to being older, when what you look like becomes less and less an issue and what you are is the point.

I'm tired of being labelled anti-American because I ask questions.

Before our kids start coming home from Iraq in body bags and women and children start dying in Baghdad, I need to know, what did Iraq do to us?

To know that once you decide to look at life outside of the narrow limits of just your world and start to understand that you can make a difference in very simple ways - in volunteering and all the way up to bigger world problems.

I believe in using words, not fists.

When you run into someone in NY it is usually a pleasant surprise. When you run into someone in LA you usually had a car accident.

The only thing I can talk about is just forgiving yourself, because I do not have everything together. And so I tell people: No, you should see my house, it's a mess.

When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.

We've legalized marijuana recently. Medical marijuana, but the rest will come.

Everyone has a responsibility towards this larger family of man, but especially if you're privileged, that increases your responsibility.

It will be great when it's not such a big deal when a woman gets a good job.

Children reinvent your world for you.

Like most parents in the US, they are trying, with a little help from UNICEF, to do the best they can to help their children reach their full potential...

I just want my kids to love who they are, have happy lives and find something they want to do and make peace with that. Your job as a parent is to give your kids not only the instincts and talents to survive, but help them enjoy their lives.

Making love is like hitting a baseball. You just gotta relax and concentrate.

We stand a chance of getting a president who has probably killed more people before he gets into office than any president in the history of the United States.

I try to live my life every day in the present, and try not to turn a blind eye to injustice and need.

I feel my family's needs are a priority. I'm not comfortable with the idea of serving the many and ignoring my family.

I think I'm an actor because I have very strong imagination and empathy. I never studied acting, but those two qualities are exactly the qualities that make for an activist.

I think sometimes what happens is that all of this feeling out of control manifests itself in trying to control your body; whether it's an eating disorder or talking about getting your nose fixed, as if that's going to be the solution to all the pressure.

How will the bombing of Baghdad, a city of five million, accomplish a regime change?

I hope they're present in their lives and feel some kind of empathy. I think a lot of the mistakes that have been made in the world have been through a lack of empathy. If you can identify with someone else and empathise with someone else, then activism is a short step away, she explained in an interview with Parade.

I wouldn't want to be 20 now. I know so much more, and I'm much more comfortable in my skin, saggy as it is When I hear young girls complaining about superficial things You're at the peak of your physical beauty right now! Just enjoy it and stop worrying about your thighs being too big If you're upset with how you look at 25, life's going to be tough

It is a different world than when I was growing up, and you started to just kind of maintain at thirty-five and just hope you can hope it together. People are a lot more vital than I am and doing all kinds of things and leading really important movements.

Just because I haven't yet had any project surgery, I'm not going to knock it, because I think women have the right to do whatever they want to their bodies that make them feel good about themselves.

To each person, their own way of death - with dignity.

Knowledge is the key to stopping the spread of AIDS. Yet millions of children are missing an education. Missing their teachers who have died of the disease. Missing from class as they stay home to care for their dying mothers and fathers. Children are missing your support. United for Children. Unite against AIDS.

On parochial school I was told I had an overabundance of original sin.

So I would hope they would develop some kind of habit that involves understanding that their life is so full they can afford to give in all kinds of ways to other people. I consider that to be baseline spirituality.

I think it's very hard to be naked in a scene and not be upstaged by your nipples.

With the help of folks like you and me, Heifer International tackles the problem of hunger one family at a time with gifts of renewable resources - farm animals that are ongoing sources of food and income.

If you walk down the street and see someone in a box, you have a choice. That person is either the other and you're fearful of them, or that person is an extension of your family. And that makes you at home in that world and not fearful. So really it's very self-serving.

It gets to be 2 a.m., and they hand you a bottle of whipped cream and some syrup and things start getting silly.

Happiness is the true beauty weapon.

New York is very user-friendly if you don't want to be in a car all the time. It can also provide you with surprises because it's so compressed - if you walk around, you just find things.

I was told I had an overabundance of original sin.

The only time I've really been away from my kids to do work was doing Shall We Dance because they both were in camp and it was the first time in twenty years that I haven't been with my kids.

9/11 just seemed to come out of the blue. And there were people asking questions, but then there were no answers. At some point, it just turned into, "We've got to do what we've got to do." And I think those are the moments when you grow, when you get the opportunity to try to figure out, exactly as you said, what price are you paying, and if it's worth that price.

Acting is kind of a forced compassion, where you learn that given certain circumstances, you can feel and do things that you never thought yourself capable of. And so it stops you from being super-judgmental.

As a mother trying to raise kids with some kind of a code, an honorable way to solve problems without using violence, I find it interesting to live in a country where your government is allowed to kill, whether it's war or execution. What interests me is not who deserves to die but who deserves to kill.

At a time when everything seems so out of control and the people you've elected are bogus and there's so much random violence and hatred, it fills you with such hope and admiration to even be part for a short time in a community where people have connected to strangers to try to put out a hand.

At the end of your life, you are going to want to know that you made some kind of difference.

Being a Catholic, I was drawn to the mystery of the Latin and the smoke and the mirrors and all of that. That part of my disposition definitely did lend itself to finding my way to the back door of some artistic pursuit.

By the time I went to the Catholic University of America, which was the time the priests were all leaving with the nuns, the more I studied about the Bible and how it came about, the more I lost my faith.

Certainly, if more people were smoking instead of drinking, people don't get mean on weed, don't beat up their wives on weed, and don't drive crazy on weed. They just get hungry, don't go out of the house, or laugh a lot. I think it would make for a much more gentle world.

Do you really expect me to say gravity hasn't taken its toll? No. But as I'm earning these lines [in my face], I'm making an aesthetic choice.

He has a very strong vision of what he wants.

I always had a problem with original sin; I always had a problem with the exclusivity of the church and a lot of the things that the nuns taught me.

I always think that the difference between film and theater is like the difference between masturbation and making love. Because, in film, you just have to get one moment right; you're practically by yourself. And in theater, you actually have to have a relationship with the audience.

I can't speak for other people, but for me, it never really worked to think something like, "What Beatle did she like in high school?" or those kinds of elaborate backstories.

I did study drama at Catholic U, but the undergraduates weren't put in productions, really, except as extras, and it wasn't a hands-on kind of thing at all. I couldn't afford to go to another college. And my grandparents lived in D.C., so I was able to live with them, and that's how I was able to afford it at all.

I don't like to plan. Very often, for me, acting is like loving; it's using the muscle that you use in loving, in that your heart feels open. Physically, you feel open. And so therefore your job is to enter, open, and listen. And see what happens.

I don't think there's a petty system of heaven and hell. The love of God is much more forgiving. I'm not a believer in a wrathful God at all.

I feel I`ve always been on the outside and always on the edge of an abyss. The women I portray, and the woman I am, are ordinary but maybe find themselves in extra-ordinary circumstances, and what they do is at great cost.

I feel it's easier to sit in the backseat and go, "Oh, yeah, let's go there." You're not worried about getting to the destination. But the guy or the woman who has to get you to the destination is worried about a lot of other things, so my job as an actor is to try as many things as possible, be as open as possible, listen, and keep my heart open.

I got married to Chris Sarandon, who was a graduate student, and he knew everything at that point, I thought, because he was older. He introduced me to poetry and black-and-white movies.

I had school debt I had to pay off. Sometimes I would do commercials to get me through. And so I kept bumping along like that and learning different things. I knew I wanted to get out on my own. I was just super-curious, and I was a good listener. And that got me through.

I hate the assumption that once you're committed to someone you stop treating each other like individuals. I like getting up knowing I am choosing to be with that person.

I hesitate to direct even though I feel I contribute a lot on a set.

I married him [Chris Sarandon] my senior year, and after I graduated, he went to the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, and I tagged along and was doing some local modeling and commercials and things like that. A woman named Jane Oliver, who handled Sylvester Stallone, saw Chris at the theater and asked him to come in and audition. We went in and auditioned - he needed someone to read with him. I read with him, and she said, "Well, why don't both of you come back in the fall."

I remember Anthony Perkins saying, "Real is not necessarily interesting." So real is not enough. But what happens as an actor is that you're really trained to listen and to be open and have empathy. It's such a natural consequence that you end up being more political. You can empathize with the mother whose kids are going to be sent to Iraq, or you can emphasize with the mother who is losing their child to a disease. How could you not then be active? So you're automatically drawn to that aspect in the rest of your life.

I think looking at your own life, on- and offscreen, you can motivate anything, or you can delude yourself into anything.

I think where you get into trouble - for instance the mixing of sex and violence - is when you're telling an audience that this horrible thing is enjoyable. The suffering just gets out of hand too much. It becomes pornographic.

I think you have to ask yourself, what is the point of the script? What is the script selling? Because all scripts are political, every story is political. It either challenges or reinforces some schism or stereotype. So what is the project going to say at the end of the day? What does it tell you about the world, or what does it challenge in terms of your world?

I think you have to be ready to switch gears and go with the team as a director, as opposed to superimposing your own strict idea of the story. There are very few directors that can micromanage and still come out with something that's living and breathing on a page. Wes Anderson is one of those .

I was a voracious reader and the library fed my curiosity, imagination and my soul. I read by the shelf - biographies, fantasy - all and everything fed my dreams. Then as an adult whenever I would go on location the first thing we would do as a family is sign up at the closest library. Not only would we find books, but what was happening in that town, because the library is the head of the community.

I was very withdrawn and definitely played with dolls well into eighth grade. But I was the oldest of nine, and that grounded me in a way that I don't think I would have been grounded otherwise. So I was able to - or forced to - function practically. But I think, by nature, I was someone who lived in my head, in my imagination.

I'd have conversations with the camera crew about what was going on in the scene, so that they were prepared to shoot it. I love the fact that when you work, you create this tribe.

If sexuality means saying yes to life, then you should be able to remain sexual until the day you die.

If Wes Anderson has a very strong cast, he can direct the minutia of that story and still manage to have something that lives and breathes.

If you always have to be watching yourself and judging, I don't think you're as free.

If you can just see all the children of the world as your own, all the mothers of the world as you are, we can make a huge difference.

If you walk down the street and see someone in a box, you have a choice. That person is either the other and you're fearful of them, or that person is an extension of your family.

If you're upset with how you look at 25, life's going to be tough.

I'll always rather be in a ship that's got a captain that has some vision.

I'm a native New Yorker. Everything to do with New York feels like my family.

I'm happy to be considered desirable. I love it!

I'm kind of a nerd, so whenever I get a chance to talk to an artist I really admire, I tend to gravitate to process.

In terms of our foreign policy, that's where we made a mistake after 9/11. Everyone's going, "Why, why, why," and there wasn't any investigation or learning from any of what we had been doing up to that time that had set us up.

In the theater, you're so much more in charge as an actor. For better or for worse, you know what the audience is seeing. But you can be acting your socks off on film, and then you see the movie, and the camera is on the other actor, or they've cut out the lines you thought were significant, or they've adjusted the plot. So much of it is out of your control.

In the U.S., they just want to know who you're sleeping with.

It didn't seem to have relevance, except in Central America or South America, countries where the church was connected to the fight of the people for economic justice. That's why it was so interesting to find myself back with Sister Helen [in Dead Man Walking], this new breed of nuns who were making a difference in the community.

It helps me chill out and focus.

It never really worked for me to have long arguments about motivation.

It's a miracle when something actually turns out well because there are so many ways for it to go wrong.

It's a very exciting time in the history of this country, to even see people responding to a different way of doing business and really wanting to make a change.

It's important to just keep wanting whatever it is you want and fight for it, desperately.

It's really hard to find stuff that is original. You pick up scripts and in four pages you know where it's going and the same thing when you are sitting in a theatre, I just rejoice when something unfolds in a way that I'm not conducive...

It's ridiculous that we continue to incarcerate anyone for using a substance that actually causes far less damage than alcohol. No one goes out looking for fights on marijuana. No one dies from marijuana intoxication. And no one should be jailed for possessing marijuana.

It's still not easy to find roles that offer more complex images of women.

I've always had a really developed sense of justice. As a child, I would rotate my dolls' dresses for fear that they might come alive at midnight and one of them would always have the best dress on. Whatever it was that made me worry about my dolls I suppose has paid off in my career because, really, an actor is all about empathy and imagination. And those are the cornerstones of activism.

I've just come back from Vegas, and I was in on the caucus process. It's insane. What a mess. And also with these particular candidates who are running, so many times I said, "I just wish Kurt [Vonnegut] were alive." This is like something he would be writing. This is just crazy stuff. I would love to hear his take on it.

I've read some of Kurt Vonnegut letters from when he was young. He was a prisoner of war, and even when he was in his early twenties, there were things mentioned that showed up in his novels. One of the sweetest things in those letters was him wanting to be a writer but doubting himself, not having confidence in himself.

I've tried them all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball.

Kurt Vonnegut wasn't a chatty guy, but when he spoke, it was always clear and very funny, in the way that he wrote, in a very specific kind of combination of word groupings and expressions that lived somewhere else.

My aunt had given me these rosary beads that were glow-in-the-dark. So all of a sudden I look down and they're glowing, and I'm looking toward the door and thinking, "Oh, my God, I don't want anything to come though here. I'm not worthy, I'm not ready." I didn't want to be one of those kids who sees Our Lady of Fatima.

My intent is to speak on behalf of those whose voices are less readily heard - children and women at risk

Never root for a team whose uniforms have elastic stretch waistbands.

Now, as I move through my fifties, I can be professional and domestic, creative and intellectual, patient and urgent. I have learned that we should never settle for someone else's definition of who we can be. Growing to this age, I realize, is kind of like feeling your voice deepen. It's still your voice, but it has more substance, and it sounds like it knows its own origins.

Now, Tim has been really, really busy, and it's been my job now to kind of deal with everything. And trying to figure out how we balance that, logistically it's a nightmare. But these little jobs make it much easier.

One night I looked down and my rosary beads were glowing. And I realized that I did not want to see the blessed Virgin - I was terrified.

Really, for me, it's important to know who's pitching and who's catching - just what that scene is supposed to accomplish in terms of storytelling. That being said, on the day, basically what you're trying to get yourself into an open place. And if the character is in a state of anxiety or vulnerability, you try to find some touchstone.

So I think (Obama) definitely has convinced people that he stands for change and for hope, and I can't wait to see what he stands for.

Somebody can be the captain of the ship, which allows you to make big mistakes.

Sometimes what happens is that, when you micromanage actors and moments, it just doesn't quite live.

Sometimes when you have to go into something, unless you're gifted and can just turn it on and off like a jukebox, you find someplace where there's nothing going on to get yourself into whatever state your character is entering into.

That's one of my little expressions. I never really studied acting so I kind of kiddingly talk about "building your circle" and "mooding up," because I really didn't learn any technique.

That's the thing about independently minded children. You bring them up teaching them to question authority, and you forget that the very first authority they question is you.

The directors I consider really great have the ability to recognize when something's going in an unexpected direction and see it as a bonus and be able to go with it, as opposed to locking down what they thought was going to happen.

The trouble with being an activist is you end up like Eve and you get kicked out of the Garden of Eden. You know, Eve was the first person who thought for herself. And she still gets a bad rap. I named my daughter after her.

Theater for me is terrifying but much more rewarding, because you know what they're seeing. Film is all little bits and pieces. And you can do an amazing job, but if the camera isn't getting it, it doesn't work. And then other times when you feel you really weren't present, and then you see it and somehow it works. So there's a mystery, there's a strange collaboration that takes place with everybody.

There have been a few little films I'd done like that that the studio just decided not to do much with, films like Anywhere but Here [1999] or Jeff, Who Lives at Home [2012]. Thank God people find them later and love them. I'm always really drawn to people who have seen these strange little films.

There is no shortcut to grieving.

There wasn't space to mood-up. I think Rose Byrne was just extraordinary. Talk about a character that could be really unsympathetic at times. She just jumped in these scenes that go from anger to hysteria to crying to laughing and back to anger. I just marveled.

This Catholic thing, I think what it does is it makes a place for mystery in a person. And even when the faith goes away, there's that space where you crave something bigger than yourself. For me, that's kind of where art came in, after that.

This is an amazing country, for all of its faults. My feeling is, dig in and let's try to change the world. Dissent is not only your right, it's your duty.

To become a lapsed Catholic, first go to a Catholic university.

We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'.

We were friends with Jonathan Demme. We were all down on the West Side of New York, and I think I met Kurt [Vonnegut] through Edith [Demme]. And then I was lucky to do Who Am I This Time? [1982], which was an adaptation of his short story that Jonathan Demme directed with Chris Walken and I, and that really cemented the friendship.