Sam Waterston Quotes

There is no problem that is not improved by effort, and no effort that is too paltry to be worth undertaking.

If there's any business that instructs you in the strong hand of fate, it's show business. You can plan and plan, but it's what happens to you that really determines what your career will be like.

I don't think there's anything to be desired in a bunch of people chasing you around, trying to get a piece of your clothing.

The Killing Fields, my character's teachings frame the movie and the argument of his lectures is the challenge of dealing with the painfulness of life in the absence of faith.

If I have to be typecast, I'd like it to be as Abraham Lincoln.

I'm too old to be governed by fear of dumb people.

Good directors say, Here's where the play is. They stand by the heart of the matter. Some of them stand beside it.

I got a note from my father, who said that Success is wonderful, if you don't inhale. That was his own aphorism, and I think it's the very best thing he could have said to me or anyone else on the subject.

If you're not moving forward, you're falling back.

I came to New York in 1962 and it began to look like I might he able to make a living in 1972.

As for lawyers, it's more fun to play one than to be one.

I don't like driving much.

If you're going to be born ugly and be an actor - the least they can do is let you play Lincoln.

I played Lucky in Waiting for Godot at Yale and it was a thing that Stanislavski talks about: he says you don't need his 'method' if you can count on your inspiration and it was a moment of inspiration that came to me, not in rehearsal but on stage. It hit me right there in the middle of the play and it was great-it travelled into immediate communication.

Separation is painful, and there's such a thing as doing it too much - the limits are how much it hurts.

In reality, conclusions are muddy, there are no final curtains, and life just goes on.

I think people have some control over what they want; there's a relationship - maybe not automatic - between what you want and get.

I'm sort of obsessed with the news. That is a syndrome. But I don't watch a whole lot of TV.

I've been able to do things that allow me to hold my head up and still be popular.

Shakespeare is the one who gets re-interpreted most frequently.

I think the bait for doing something really is always the part.

I don't think playing a villain is my greatest talent.

That's where I'd like to be: when the business says here's a good actor who is marketable so we can use him. Just that.