Zoe Kazan quotes:

I think film writing, you're thinking in pictures, and stage writing, you're thinking in dialogue. In film writing, it's also, you only get so many words, so everything has to earn its place in a really economical way. I think for stage writing, you have more leeway.

Well, I have a sister that I'm very close with, and that relationship is probably the most intense relationship of my life to date, probably of my life, period.

I'm used to very low-budget situations. In 'The Exploding Girl,' we were literally changing in Starbucks because we didn't have trailers.

I love bad movies, whereas going to the theater for me is a painful experience. I think it's really hard to sit and watch actors do something live and have it not go well.

There aren't a lot of movies being made about women, period. Most of the time, the roles that are available are the sidekick, the friend, the girlfriend or the wife, and they just aren't that interesting.

I hate going to bed. I read scripts, clean, listen to the radio - I've fallen asleep to 'This American Life' more times than I can count!

I took a writing class in college, liked it, and my first year out of school I couldn't get a job, so I wrote a play.

I think movies have much more magic than the theater. Theater can be a magical experience, but movies thrust their subjectivity on you in a more profound way.

When I look back, I can say that the summer when I was 19 was a formative time for me. But at the time I just thought I was making tofu every night for dinner and going to work.

I think the written word is my first love. I was just a very imagination - centered child and a big part of that imaginary life came from reading.

Anytime that I've felt uninspired, I don't force myself to sit down and write. I only do it when I feel the impulse.

And I think the female creative urge is intrinsically biologically linked to our ability to give birth to a child, even if we've never... I've never given birth, but I feel like it's part of our psychology.

And then the really awful thing is that at the end of the day after crying and experiencing things, then you look at what you've written and you're like, 'Hmm, there's half a page that's good here.' Then you throw out everything else.

And when I get bored, it's like the worst parts of me come out. I really veer to self-destructive tendencies quickly.

I read a lot of plays as a kid, but I didn't see that many plays, so I feel better-versed in film history and film structure. I just think it's easier to think in pictures.

I find playwriting to be incredibly difficult compared to screenwriting. Part of it is that I grew up watching movies and not watching plays.

Writing-wise, I like to have a lot of things on the burners at once, because when I hit a wall, I like to move on to the thing I haven't hit a wall on.

I really love people. I love to meet people. I'm curious about people.

If I'm not working, I don't feel complete.

I find playwriting really painful. I love it, or I wouldn't do it, but I don't love the theater as much as I love movies.

I've always really been interested in the Pygmalion myth and both what it has to say about creativity and what it has to say about relationships between men and women.

I love to walk around New York. Honestly, that's like the best thing, to walk over to Park Slope and go visit my friend Betty and take her dog out in the park or go walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. I really dig being outside and getting to see everybody in the street.

People really do make the assumption that I had some weirdo Hollywood upbringing, but my parents are incredibly down-to-earth people who worked really hard to raise us in a way that was health.

I have mad luck. I'm super-good at games like backgammon or anything that requires rolling dice.

I always wrote. My parents are writers. It just seemed like something people did.

I think action should be revealed through character, so if you have a plot problem, it's probably a character problem.

When I'm writing, I look like a fool because the parts are moving through me and I'm crying and laughing and making faces.

Half the fun is getting to play dress-up and imagine what it's like to be this other person. If you're not excited about a part where you get to use your imagination, then what's the point in doing it? It'll be just another job. Also, Director Michael Pressman and I see eye-to-eye with Marie.

I am proud and embarrassed by how incredibly self-confident I was in my late teens and early 20s. I know that there were other things going on, too, but I had an overwhelming belief in myself. Like I said, I'm embarrassed by it and proud of it.

I don't feel like I have a super straightforward relationship with the idea of fame. It makes me sort of level things out in my own brain almost immediately when I meet someone.

I don't have a lot of patience for boring arthouse movies.

I don't like pretentious films or pretentious people.

I feel lucky to receive such critical attention and praise when you're in a show that's going to last a month, it's just easier when audiences are more receptive. I've done two new shows this year, so I'm always excited to work on something a little older, traditional and structured.

I grew up with my grandfather [Elia Kazan] being famous in a way that's not like Beyoncé, but famous in a relative way. It made me feel weird about the way that we treat people that are famous, and it made me feel weird about fame in general.

I guess I always like being asked questions about influence or inspiration, like, "What are you reading? Who are your heroes? Is there any one person you want to shout out to now?" I really love paying it forward with love and attention, because that's what I like to read.

I had a real feeling of being fated to be an actor and do my work, and I remember so much speaking up in a room full of people who authentically knew as much or more than me, and feeling like I was absolutely equal, and what I had to say was important.

I love to act and that's sort of my first love. That's what I started out doing.

I never wanted to be a playwright.

I quite enjoy a high-waisted cotton panty.

I stopped Googling myself a long time ago. I'm sure there's plenty of misinformation out there, but I am blissfully unaware of it.

I think from my earliest childhood, I liked to tell stories, put on plays and write things. It's funny to think of it as an "artistic bug" because I didn't necessarily want to be an artist. It's just who I was and how I communicate.

I think most actors jump at the chance to do something where the camera's on them all the time.

I think, a lot of times, directors assume that whatever they get from you the first time, whether it be at an audition or on set, is all that you can bring.

I was a vegetarian for a really long time, from 7 to 23, so I feel like some things aren't that weird but they seem weird to me, like blood sausage or snails. Those are things I've eaten now that, years ago, it would have been totally improbable that I would have eaten.

I was really surprised when I started working and realized that you're actually on your own, a lot of the time. It makes you really responsible, as an actor.

I would not wear any clothes that had a brand name on them, and I only read books that were canonical.

I would not wear any clothes that had a brand name on them, and I only read books that were canonical. I wouldn't wear makeup, and I didn't like to let boys open the door for me because I felt like it was sexist. My heart was in the right place, but I was such a tiny dictator about it. It's embarrassing to me now because I was so rigid. It's such a rigid way of looking at the world. There's something very young about that mind-set.

I wouldn't wear makeup, and I didn't like to let boys open the door for me because I felt like it was sexist.

If I ever feel that acting is just soul-sucking and I don't want to do it anymore, I could stop.

I'm always disappointed after an audition when I don't get a part and I hear, "Oh, she was too X, or too Y," and it's too much of a quality.

I'm klutzy, and I don't embarrass easily.

I'm pretty sure I ate ants in Mexico.

In New York you can just walk out and be among people. You're on the subway among people, you go to cafes, you can talk to people.

It's a good thing I learned some humility and perspective as I got older.

It's fun for me to be with someone who loves reading as much as I do, because he'll give me things to read that I wouldn't normally seek out, and I think vice versa.

I've definitely gotten to work with female directors, and I feel lucky because of that. I just feel like more voices should be represented.

I've gotten incredibly lucky with the people I've gotten to work with. It's made my mind better, and it's made me a better person.

I've never stolen anything. Well, that's not entirely true. I once accidentally took a gift card from a store in a mall. I was carrying it around to show my mom because I thought it was funny, and I forgot to show it to her and left the store carrying it. I had a complete nervous breakdown, like, 20 minutes later and went back to the store in tears. So that's where I stand in terms of my ability to steal something.

I've worked with a lot of really famous people. It stops being weird really quickly. For me, at least.

My grandmother told me: "We all dated lots of different boys because no one was having sex or kissing. It was just going out for sodas and getting to know people. It didn't seem like there was a threat." I think now we have more ideas of people having premarital and unprotected sex.

My hero is Michelle Williams, who I grew close to when we did 'Meek's Cutoff.' She's an extraordinary actor and mom.

Nothing's going to come to you by sitting around and waiting for it.

On a personal level, just for me in my own work, I would say the most interesting thing has been getting to work with the people that I've worked with.

Part of the challenge of being a girl living in the 21st Century, looking back, the danger is to not judge your character by your own standards.

So often you're asked to play impossibly perfect version of yourself on screen that it's nice to get to bring in those parts that you think aren't as worth looking at.

Sometimes I feel that the people I'm writing are more real to me than the people around me. When you take that imaginative leap, you're living so much in that world.

There are a lot of words that I knew first as a reader, and I never put the pieces together in my brain. The word segue I thought was pronounced "seeg," I think until I went to college, which is horribly embarrassing.

There's part of me that's grateful for the delusion, because it takes a very hard shell to get started as an actor, and I don't have a very hard shell.

Too often in the theatre people can't wait for intermission to get some chocolate or something. But with Come Back, Little Sheba I just hope people leave feeling like they've spent a really good two-hours in that house with us.

We all have our essential nature. If you're good with numbers, you don't even know you're good with numbers because that's how your mind works.

What I did have was an incredible amount of belief in myself.

When I would get close on a part but wouldn't get it, I would be like, "They made a mistake," which is not how I think about things now. I both admire it and I'm grateful for the modicum of health, knowledge, and humility that I have acquired over the last 10 or 15 years.

When we do something we're not proud of, a lot of people don't want to look at that, people may say "what people don't know won't hurt them."

When you're in the editing room, as a director, you get the opportunity to look at your work. As a writer, you can rewrite. But as an actor, unless you're watching playback, you really rely on the director to help you.

You set up the story, but the characters start talking, and they go places that you didn't expect. You have to follow.