Quotes from Ellen Burstyn

We can all live longer, better, than we ever could before. You don't have to retire.

With all the awards I've won, you'd think that I'd at least be able to make a living. It's a really terrible situation.

With 'The Last Picture Show,' Peter Bogdanovich brought the script to the company that made it. They liked it, and they gave him the money he needed to make the film. He cast it with the actors that he thought were right for the parts. Now, it's the reverse.

It's interesting: John Calley at Warner Bros. helped me put 'Alice' together. It was very unusual back then for a studio to support an actress the way he backed and supported me. He even asked me if I wanted to direct the film, which I didn't feel prepared to at that point.

Their life is about getting enough money to put food on the table to feed their children, and that's it.

I feel compassion is so important to develop in ourselves. It's one of the most important elements of being a human being.

What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be

I had a dream that I was being drowned in a flood and I realized it was a flood of people.

That's when I understood deeply that with all my studies of other religions, basically I really am devoted to Jesus. I am not a church-going Christian, not a conventional one by most standards, but in my heart, Jesus is my guru.

I'm interested in the cosmos. I want to know what's out there and how connected we are.

When you recognize what your talents are, a happy life is developing them to the greatest extent you can.

There was no such thing as child abuse. Parents owned their children. They could do whatever they wanted.

I've lived most of my life in Manhattan, but as close as Brooklyn is to Manhattan, there are people who live there who have been to Manhattan maybe once or twice.

They pulled Resurrection out of the theatres, so it was running in New York and I was nominated for the Oscar and there was no ad in the newspapers to say it was running. So it was literally killed.

I feel eager to learn as much as I can, not only about my craft but the world and the cosmos and how we got here and whether there's any purpose to our being here.

When I was 19, I took a train from Houston to New York, and I had in my lap the collected works of William Shakespeare. The play I read on that journey was 'Titus Andronicus.'

My mother was very glamorous. She was very beautiful, and she had a lot of friends; she was fun and loved to drink.

I've liked all the directors I've worked with a lot. And the ones I like best are the ones that have really good taste about what take was best.

The interesting thing about doing a play is to find a way to make it fresh and do it as though you were doing it for the first time.

Their life is about getting enough money to put food on the table to feed their children, and that's it.

I do like to work with young directors because it's such a difficult business that I think after directors have been around a while sometimes, not always, but sometimes their passion gets siphoned off because they get hurt.

It's a sin to have your films not to make money.

I always wanted to play Joan of Arc. I've always wanted to do that. Now I'm thinking, 'Maybe there's a story in Joan of Arc's mother!' If I don't hurry up, her grandmother!

It's been awhile. My Oscar is getting kind of tarnished. I looked at it a couple of years ago and thought I really needed a new one.