Kathleen Turner Quotes

What makes me angry? The education of children. How in God's name can you expect to have a functioning society the way we teach our kids?

My father was a diplomatic officer. As a diplomat's daughter, you have to learn to present yourself very early on.

I don't see anything wrong with technology as long as it doesn't interfere with your life.

Get more women producers, writers, directors. Why should we expect men to do it for us? They can't.

My husband says I can do anything I put my mind to, but the truth i, the only thing I want to do is act.

I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way.

The idea behind doing comedies is that you go home a little happier.

The older I get, the less I suffer fools gladly.

What we need is more women writers, writing for older women. There are some actresses who have production companies and create their own material, and I truly admire that.

It begins and ends with money. It's absurd in this day and age when we need so much money for education, health, for people, that a $100 million dollars can be spent on a film. It's obscene.

I never feel more alive than when I'm on stage. On film you feel chopped up, you can be acting from the neck up, or the hand, there is a lot of close up.

The best role is always ahead.

I have no desire to play most of the roles being offered.

I do not admire young actresses whose foreheads cannot move.

At about 40, the roles started slowing down. I started getting offers to play mothers and grandmothers.

Being a sex symbol has to do with an attitude, not looks. Most men think it's looks, most women know otherwise.

I rent houses in LA when I'm filming. I find the isolation there terrifying. There's nowhere to go, there's nowhere to be with people. I'm not a beach bunny.

I find the idea of today's icons being teenagers incredibly uninspiring.

Appearing nude on film was not easy when I was twenty-six in Body Heat; it was even harder when I was forty-six in The Graduate, on the stage, which is more up close and personal than film. After my middle-age nude scene, though, I unexpectedly got letters from women saying, "I have not undressed in front of my husband in ten years and I'm going to tonight." Or, "I have not looked in the mirror at my body and you gave me permission."
These affirmations from other women were especially touching to me because when I began The Graduate I'd just come through a period when I felt a great loss of confidence, when my rheumatoid arthritis hit me hard and I literally couldn't walk or do any of the things that I was so used to doing. It used to be that if I said to my body, "Leap across the room now," it would leap instantly. I don't know how I did it, but I did it. I hadn't realized how much my confidence was based on my physicality. On my ability to make my body do whatever I wanted it to do.
I was so consumed, not just by thinking about what I could and couldn't do, but also by handling the pain, the continual, chronic pain. I didn't realize how pain colored my whole world and how depressive it was. Before I was finally able to control my RA with proper medications, I truly had thought that my attractiveness and my ability to be attractive to men was gone, was lost. So for me to come back and do The Graduate was an affirmation to myself. I had my body back. I was back.

My greatest fear when we were doing "Body Heat" was that I wouldn't be sexy. I didn't have a self-image of myself as this alluring, powerful, sexual female.

I always thought the point was to have a bigger life, to meet more people. So I don't understand Hollywood.

I don't believe in simply accumulating money, but I have the luxury to say that, because I have enough for all my needs.

I had a great deal of pressure to move to LA after Romancing the Stone came out and I'd become very popular. But people came to me anyway.

This is not about abortion or the antics. This is about pro choice versus anti-choice and government intervention in a woman's personal decisions about her life.

I have health. I have a wonderful support system. I have the admiration of millions of strangers, which I do not underestimate.

When I'm really hot, I can walk into a room and if a man doesn't look at me, he's probably gay.

I think Europeans have enough tradition and respect for the experience and body of work of an actress that they don't sell out to the new ones.

I think my mission is to become the greatest human I can. I know that sounds pompous, but what else do we have?

When someone is kissing you passionately, you feel passionate!

Professionally, I have no age.

Women are responsible for creating their own roles.

One of the things I do tell young women, if they want to pursue a career in acting, is to get good stage training. It is essential to have a good basis in stage technique. You can move into film easily, and acquire more skill and more understanding, but you can't necessarily go the other way around. For women, longevity of career will very much be on stage.

I want people to like me. They don't have to always like my characters, you understand.

Risk is the willingness to fail.

It's fascinating how all of us, everyday, rely - at some point, to some extent, for some reason - on faith in our life. Whether it's God or not, or "Please help me!"

There are still women who are not living their own lives, but living through their men or their children.

You know, when you've worked with somebody before and you've worked very deeply and dangerously then you start with the relaxation and the trust right away and that lets you go even deeper, which is a lovely thing.

I don't think it has to be one religious structure, one church. I think the issues of faith and redemption are much more universal than any one religion.

I never took to Hollywood.

Organized religion is primarily man putting words in God's mouth. That's how I basically feel about that. But, I do believe in believing and I admire it. I just don't think it should be exclusive or judgmental.

It never occurred to me that I couldn't change things that needed changing or couldn't have what I wanted if I worked hard enough and was good enough.

I figured as I got older, the good roles for women would be in the theatre. So 15 years ago I started building a Broadway career to try and develop the chops to be accepted as a great theatrical actress.

I'm not very active politically. The causes I work on offer immediate, practical, accessible help, and politics has never meant that to me.

You shouldn't get to live in society and give nothing back. People complain about their taxes, yet they do nothing for the community. That makes me furious.

I don't really go to YouTube or, especially, participate in Facebook. I just really don't want to know that many people!

I'm very old-fashioned in some ways because of my father, who thought that being a public servant was an honor. Everyone must find a capacity in which they can serve, because we all benefit from society.