Quotes from Meryl Streep

I let the actions of my life stand for what I am as a human being. Contend with that, not the words.

I'm thrilled when I get nominated. I don't count how many and I don't remember how many I've had. I just know it's a lot.

We change who we are to fit the exogenous of our time, and not just strategically or to our own advantage, sometimes sympathetically without our even knowing it for the betterment of the whole group.

When I was younger I spent way too much time thinking about me being too fat. So stupid.

You can't strategize falling in love, can you? It's never worked. People love you the most and set you up, and it doesn't work because you can't predict these things. You fall in love serially.

Leave me to the thing I love. I love acting. But being called 'the greatest living actress' - a designation not even my mother would sanction - is the opposite of good or valuable or useful. It is a curse for a working actor.

I get nervous the more time I have to think about something so I deliberately don't give myself too much time between jobs. I take a big break and then I start working again usually.

I don't have time to read a lot. And when I do, I read things that have just the facts.

I love acting, of course, but being with my husband and my children always brought me the greatest joy and happiness in life.

The more you are in this business, the more humbled by it you become.

Service is the only thing that's important about love. Everybody is worried about 'losing yourself' - all this narcissism. Duty. We can't stand that idea now either... But duty might be a suit of armor you put on to fight for your love.

I have a lot to say about the world, clearly. I can't put together a clear sentence about it all, but through the work I can say what I think.

The progression of roles you take strings together a portrait of an actor, but it's a completely random process.

Nobody can swashbuckle a quick-witted riposte like Emma Thompson. She's a writer, a real writer, and she has a relish for the well-chosen word.

I didn't really like opera. I liked cheerleading and boys and, later, smoking. So my opera career was cut short when I was 15. My dad got sick, and we couldn't afford the lessons, so I stopped and became a cheerleader and wrecked my voice.

We all make the mistake thinking that how you look makes you more worthy of love.

Grace, respect, reserve, and empathetic listening are qualities sorely missing from the public discourse now.

Enough people write about me every day without even interviewing me.

I have a very clear understanding of what my voice is. It's like a B voice. It hovers around B-minus, B-plus. I have great friends who are wonderful singers, and I know I'll never be able to do that. But singing through a character is something I can do.

I love Goodfellows and I love Nick Palleggi, but no, it's The Godfather, 1 and 2.

I had this sort of idolatry for certain actors who preceded me, people who inspired me, so I'm honored to be that way for young actors.

I don't know very much about, honestly, about the Middle East, and yet I've played a lot of different people from a lot of different cultures. The thing that I notice is that we're all - there is a core of humanity that travels right through every culture. And, after all, we're all from Africa originally.

For me, clothes are kind of character; I don't follow fashion or understand trends.

As there begins to be less time ahead of you, you want to be exactly who you are, without making it easier for everyone else.