Quotes from Jessica Lange

I have made decisions based from purely an actor's point of view.

If I had to start over, I'd pursue photography - probably to the exclusion of acting.

Photography was a blessing because it filled my time. If I had to start over, I'd pursue photography - probably to the exclusion of acting.

I've been thinking a lot about next year, which will be the first time in 25 years that I don't have a child at home.

Families survive, one way or another. You have a tie, a connection that exists long after death, through many lifetimes.

It took Sydney Pollack a long time to get me to do Tootsie. I asked myself if I wanted to play some frothy, ditzy character after I had just done Frances. Obviously, I'm thrilled that I did.

So much of my sense of who I am is tied to mothering. When they left home, I fell into a huge, empty, black hole. Your children are grown and your career has slowed down - all the stuff that took up so much attention is gone, and you're left with expansive time and space.

Your children are grown and your career has slowed down - all the stuff that took up so much attention is gone, and you're left with expansive time and space. You have to reimagine who you are and what life is about.

Acceptance and tolerance and forgiveness, those are life-altering lessons.

One of the things I love about acting is that it reveals a certain something about yourself, but it doesn't reveal your own personal story.

Allow the diversity to exist. There is nothing wrong with it. Hell, we put up with the religious right-we can put up with transgendered human beings.

Photography was a blessing because it filled my time.

TV is sort of the only way to go for an actress my age to make a decent salary; with independent films, you just can't.

Because Shakespeare's language is so expansive, we're under this misconception that it's difficult. But I discovered that it's easy because it's so brilliantly written. The words are perfect, and the language is intelligent and very emotional.

I never felt like I belonged in Minnesota when I was growing up there. That's why I was out the door as soon as I turned 18.

Sometimes the odds are against you-the director doesn't know what the hell he's doing, or something falls apart in the production, or you're working with an actor who's just unbearable.

I love men. I've always been drawn to poets, artists, and madmen. Sometimes all three in one

There was that feminist myth that we can do everything. I don't think you can.

In families there is always the mythology. My father died when my kids were quite young still, and yet they still tell his stories. That is how a person lives on.

There's something magical still about it when I get in a darkroom, and you've shot a roll of film and you develop it and you look at your negatives, and there's, like, imagery there. That always stuns me.

I could be making a lot more money now if I had chosen a different kind of movie, but none of that matters to me... I've done the parts I wanted to do.

I've got nothing left to lose at this point. The work I've done is out there.

To work on the actual location I think is great. This thing of going to Canada and pretending you're in New York, it's terrible.

I do love acting. But to work as a photojournalist would have been extraordinary.