Quotes from Blythe Danner

Just look at my face. Its an extraordinary experience. All of my friends who are grandparents have been saying, just wait, a bit cynically, but its just extraordinary. You feel like a child again yourself. Just walking on air.

I loved the first Christmas I had in England.

That's what's so wonderful about being in this business because you're constantly surprised. You have to be up for anything.

I feel that its our children who do give us hope because they are the ones who are going to save the world.

It was in high school that I first became interested in acting. We put on lots of plays.

Mostly, I spend my time being a mother to my two children, working in my organic garden, raising masses of sweet peas, being passionately involved in conservation, recycling and solar energy.

My husband was very special and very funny and outspoken, and he would have a black and blue every so often because under the table, I'd say, 'Don't say that!'

Maybe subconsciously I've kept activism separate from acting because it's important to me in a more profound way.

For a woman who's a widow and pretty much a loner, I can walk out, and I'm surrounded by NYU kids. The energy jumps off the sidewalks, and I never feel sad or bored.

I've been very lucky. I wanted to be an actress, but I didn't really have the drive to sell myself. Fortunately I had a terrific agent in New York who kept me going from job to job.

My theory in anything you do is to keep exploring, keep digging deeper to find new stuff.

Acting is really only part of my life. I'm addicted to it.

I really pulled back on my career when the kids were young and my husband and I made a pact never to work while the other one was.

You learn more discipline in the theatre than you do in movies or TV. You're on stage every night and you have to sustain your energy level tor several hours.

Actors are very generous.

I don't read critics, and I don't care what they say. You can't let them steal your soul. You do what the director and production is committed to doing. I just think it's terrible that critics have the power to keep people away from a good production.

My earliest memories of Gwyneth first singing is in bed when we would make up songs. The most I could do was harmonize, like, a third above, and at two years old, she'd be doing sixths. I said, 'Where in the world did that come from?' She'd just make up songs.

I feel a little guilty only being an actor.

I've always just adored music. It's my first love, really. I admire and respect people in the music business. You really have to work hard and diligently. Sometimes actors can be lazy and get away with it, but you can't do that if you're a musician.

I think one of my very favorite films of all time was with Peter Sellers when he played Chauncey, the gardener. Being There.

I am always happiest in an ensemble.

I've always had a middling kind of a career, not great highs and great lows.

I got to Broadway a year after I came to New York. I starred in 'Butterflies Are Free' and got a Tony for it. Right out of the gate. Maybe that's why I wasn't very gracious about it. I wasn't driven. And right after 'Butterflies Are Free', I got married and then started a family. I always wanted that.

I really do like being independent, and I don't want to have to rely on anyone else to cart me around if I break a bone.