Quotes from Frances McDormand

My father was a minister, and it was more my mother that had the responsibility of making sure the family put out an outward of appearance of living what he was preaching. She was the PR.

One of the reasons I am successful as a producer is that I've been a very successful housewife.

Even though I'm an actor, I've gone to productions where there has been someone whose work is known in film, and you can't take your eyes off them. It unbalances the production. Whether they're good or not, it doesn't matter.

I know I'm profane. And outspoken.

I think that cosmetic enhancements in my profession are just an occupational hazard. But I think, more culturally, I'm interested in starting the conversation about aging gracefully and how, instead of making it a cultural problem, we make it individuals' problems.

I would disagree that America is any more racist or ridiculous than anywhere else.

There's something healing about tears.

Everybody dresses like a teenager. Everybody dyes their hair. Everybody is concerned about a smooth face.

I want to separate my professional life from my personal life. I want to live a normal life and be a normal mother.

My politics are private, but many of my feminist politics cross over into my professional life.

I'm not really interested in promoting 'Olive' as a series about depression or mental illness.

Unless it's a flat-out farce, an actor can't play comedy on film.

At least three times a week, I'm approached by someone who says something about 'Fargo.'

I am not a director or a writer, but a filmmaker.

The last scene in 'Moonlight,' that's one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen on film in my lifetime. You see two men showing such tenderness towards each other. And it's bold; it's deep. It's complex. It's profound.

I learned how to read in second grade, and I entered a summer contest at my local library in Chattanooga, Tennessee. If you read more books than anybody else, you got your Polaroid up on the bulletin board, and I did.

Who can worry about a career? Have a life.

Because of my own insecurities about the way I look, I do sometimes sabotage the looks of my characters by making them as homely as possible. I've never done a glamour part. I'd like to some day, though I don't know if I could pull it off.

If you take it as a compliment that you don't look your age, then you're really shooting yourself in the foot.

We appreciate quiet living. It's not exactly a Hollywood way of life - I couldn't stand living out in Hollywood because you can never escape from the business. All people ever do is talk about movies. At least in New York you can have some other life.

I was too old, too young, too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, too blond, too dark - but at some point, they're going to need the other. So I'd get really good at being the other.

I was often told that I wasn't a thing. 'She's not pretty enough. She's not tall enough. She's not thin enough. She's not fat enough.' I thought, 'O.K., someday you're going to be looking for someone not, not, not, not, and there I'll be.'

It's much easier to play supporting roles because that's what I do in my life: I support my son.

I will go to my grave being known as Marge Gunderson. It'll be on my gravestone if I have one. I don't mind that, because it was a great character.