Joan Cusack Quotes

It was fun; you know, at this point in my life it's like, I want to do stuff that's meaningful.

I think it's fun to have work that you can relate to, that you can feel like is meaningful.

I think America has a bad rap right now ... and hopefully Obama will change that.

Don't live vicariously through your kids or try to shape them into who you wanted to be, like the popular kid or an athlete. Children should be given the opportunity to be themselves.

In L.A., it's easy to get caught up in what you look like or how much money you have, and those aren't values I want my kids to adopt.

You're curious about someone, or why they're doing what they're doing. Because everyone who gets to work in this field is so lucky, and it's such a rarified world, I understand that. At the end of the day, I'm interested in demystifying it.

I think acting has helped me come out of my shell because when I play a character, I can't be self-conscious.

I think if you're in this business, like any high-stakes business, the highs and lows can make you a manic-depressive person, if you weren't that way to start with. 'Cause it's just so crazy on your psyche. A lot of it has to do with people thinking they're greater than someone else.

Skating is big in Chicago. There's a lot of hockey; a lot of the boys play hockey. And figure skating is big.

I think that everything's hard now anyways, so you might as well do stuff that you love and believe in.

I mean that I think I find the psychology of people more interesting than politics. I think the psychology of politics is more interesting than straight politics.

I mean, the country was founded on free enterprise. There's good things about it, and there's obviously bad things about it.

You know, I think I'm more of a micro-person, so to me, the context and the framework of trying to do what you love and feel passionate about, in supporting your family in that way, is the most important thing to me.

My mum is very political - left wing - and my dad was in the advertising business. They were both from the East Coast: Boston and New York City, respectively.

You know, I loved math. My mom was a math teacher.

I think there's nothing better than laughing in life, so that's nice, to be thought of as someone who can make someone laugh. It's 'cause I think life is hard. You know, my dad was a really silly man. A great Irish silly man. And that's fine.

It's important to being a healthy person. So while you're here on the earth, you might as well enjoy it. And it's hard to enjoy things when you're crazy.

We need comedies in the world! We need to laugh, it's all so hard.

Mum has always been a huge anti-war activist. She would go off to protest and get arrested. I have her passion, but it is not for politics. I am much more interested in psychology. It's more my job and my natural inclination.

I can't imagine being a single parent or a single parent that doesn't have a lot of money. That's a big, huge impact on your life and your dynamic and everything - I mean, that's huge. It affects how much you have a break from just concentrating on just one other person in your life. It becomes so myopic that way, and more intense, probably.

I think just because life is hard, it does seem fun to have a break and laugh about things, so I think in the end, my instincts go there.

I think us gals need to stay in and just change the way it works, so men aren't being workaholics and avoiding life and relationships, and they can make films in a reasonable amount of time, so you can have a family and a life outside of work. And have more balanced, content-driven, enjoyable movies.

My first job now is as a mother, everything else is secondary. My kids understand that I am an actress, and they are always so surprised to hear my voice on a cartoon character, or see my face on a video box. If it ever gets to be too much though, the career and the kids, I will simply set the career aside.

I tend to come from a more psychological - that's sort of my passion. I'm interested in the psychology of politics as well - and obviously I'm interested in what's going on in the world - but my passion is more the psychology of people.

I play- it's kind of like a slice-of-life, LA women in their forties, playing forty kind of what's their friendship like, and what's their life like and so I just play one of the four friends.

Can they do both? That's a huge balance, I think, with kids- trying to find the right- it's everything, you know, it's social life, it's academics, it's sports.

It was a terrible blow that was dealt when I was fired from 'Saturday Night Live', but I have to say that a few doors opened right away. Movie roles started to roll in, and pretty soon, I was over it.

Maybe I'm more drawn to those kind of parts because they are meaningful to me. I mean, more parent-y ones, I find them interesting to do.