Quotes from Dinah Manoff

Once you have been hot and cold, you get real appreciative when you got a place to go every day with decent material, a paycheck to come in, and nice people to work with.

My mother is a hardcore actor's actor. She's not a celebrity. She really isn't... And so her main concern was that I not fall into the auditioning-is-my-life syndrome.

I'm an entertainer: I want to make people laugh, cry. I want to move them.

I found out my limit. I'm not a singer and a dancer.

I've always dated hunks.

I am my father's daughter: I have his language, his expressions.

I don't understand people who want to leave a good job. To me, without being terribly judgmental, those are people who haven't gone through their stint of being out of work for long periods of time.

When I like myself, which is not too often, but when I do like myself on film, it's when I point, and I go, 'Look what she did! She did the funniest thing - look at her!' Where I can really separate back from it and I don't see me anymore, then I'm really excited. That's, like, really fun for me. That jazzes me.

I wear a St. Christopher medal. On the back it says: 'Good luck, good luck, good luck - Mama.'

I happen to think, really, that I'm good at what I do.

I'm a slob. I live in sweatpants and workout clothes.

I remember unbelievable tension in our home. There were lots of meetings, lots of worries. I remember my father told me I had to be careful of what I said on the phone because it was tapped. And I remember how his friends adored and revered him.

My mother used to ask me to stay home from school and keep her company. I'd fake I was sick, and she'd fake believing me.

I loved being a troublemaker. At Santa Monica High, I would smoke on campus, go barefoot, anything.

I'm clean and sober.

I kept turning down roles because I knew I just wasn't ready for them.

I think that from 15 to, like, 18, I went through a very rough time. Something basically everyone goes through in those years - not knowing what you're going to do.

Mother was so good that I was defeated even before I started to be an actress. I thought I could never make it unless I spent years in the Actors Studios, went on the blacklist and lived in New York, as she did.

I sure don't miss going out on auditions!