Quotes from Stella Adler

One way we can enliven the imagination is to push it toward the illogical. We're not scientists. We don't always have to make the logical, reasonable leap.

The ideas of the great playwrights are almost always larger than the experiences of even the best actors.

Your talent is in your choice.

Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.

The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation.

You act with your soul. That's why you all want to be actors, because your souls are not used up by life.

Life is boring. The weather is boring. Actors must not be boring.

An addict is someone who uses their body to tell society that something is wrong.

By taking elements you observe in life, you can develop qualities in your acting life that you don't ordinarily call upon in your personal life.

It's not important to know who you are. It's important to know what you do, and then to do it like hercules!

When you stand on the stage you must have a sense that you are addressing the whole world, and that what you say is so important the whole world must listen.

In life, as on the stage, it's not who I am but what I do that's the measure of my worth and the secret of my success. All the rest is showiness, arrogance and conceit.

The theatre is a spiritual and social X-ray of its time.

The play is not in the words, it's in you!

The actor cannot afford to look only to his own life for all his material nor pull strictly from his own experience to find his acting choices and feelings.

The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation.

life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one

Actors need a kind of aggression, a kind of inner force. Don't be only one-sided, sweet, nice, good. Get rid of being average. Find the killer in you.

The thing that makes you say, I want to do something - that is the beginning of talent.

Acting is in everything but the words.

You have to do something. If you do something, you become somebody. Even a daffodil does something, has a profession. It gives off scent, professionally.

You will only fail to learn if you do not learn from failing.

You cannot afford to confine your studies to the classroom. The universe and all of history is your classroom.

Sometimes life beats down and crushes the soul, and art reminds you that you have one