Susan Sarandon Quotes

If sexuality means saying yes to life, then you should be able to remain sexual until the day you die.

If you walk down the street and see someone in a box, you have a choice. That person is either the other and you're fearful of them, or that person is an extension of your family. And that makes you at home in that world and not fearful. So really it's very self-serving.

I try to live my life every day in the present, and try not to turn a blind eye to injustice and need.

Somebody can be the captain of the ship, which allows you to make big mistakes.

With the help of folks like you and me, Heifer International tackles the problem of hunger one family at a time with gifts of renewable resources - farm animals that are ongoing sources of food and income.

So I think (Obama) definitely has convinced people that he stands for change and for hope, and I can't wait to see what he stands for.

When Alan Rickman, a dear friend of mine, played villains, he always made it complicated. He didn't redeem what they did, but he made you feel that it was hard for them to be so horrible.

How you spend your energy is ultimately what creates who you are.
(On Beauty: Susan Sarandon, Vogue, January 8, 2016)

It didn't seem to have relevance, except in Central America or South America, countries where the church was connected to the fight of the people for economic justice. That's why it was so interesting to find myself back with Sister Helen [in Dead Man Walking], this new breed of nuns who were making a difference in the community.

Ladies, stress shows on your face. Happiness is the true beauty weapon.
As quoted in The Black Book of Hollywood Beauty Secrets ( Kym Douglas / Cindy Pearlman, 2006)

It's ridiculous that we continue to incarcerate anyone for using a substance that actually causes far less damage than alcohol. No one goes out looking for fights on marijuana. No one dies from marijuana intoxication. And no one should be jailed for possessing marijuana.

One night I looked down and my rosary beads were glowing. And I realized that I did not want to see the blessed Virgin - I was terrified.

If Wes Anderson has a very strong cast, he can direct the minutia of that story and still manage to have something that lives and breathes.

There have been a few little films I'd done like that that the studio just decided not to do much with, films like Anywhere but Here [1999] or Jeff, Who Lives at Home [2012]. Thank God people find them later and love them. I'm always really drawn to people who have seen these strange little films.

Certainly, if more people were smoking instead of drinking, people don't get mean on weed, don't beat up their wives on weed, and don't drive crazy on weed. They just get hungry, don't go out of the house, or laugh a lot. I think it would make for a much more gentle world.

My aunt had given me these rosary beads that were glow-in-the-dark. So all of a sudden I look down and they're glowing, and I'm looking toward the door and thinking, "Oh, my God, I don't want anything to come though here. I'm not worthy, I'm not ready." I didn't want to be one of those kids who sees Our Lady of Fatima.

I think where you get into trouble - for instance the mixing of sex and violence - is when you're telling an audience that this horrible thing is enjoyable. The suffering just gets out of hand too much. It becomes pornographic.

Theater for me is terrifying but much more rewarding, because you know what they're seeing. Film is all little bits and pieces. And you can do an amazing job, but if the camera isn't getting it, it doesn't work. And then other times when you feel you really weren't present, and then you see it and somehow it works. So there's a mystery, there's a strange collaboration that takes place with everybody.

I think you have to ask yourself, what is the point of the script? What is the script selling? Because all scripts are political, every story is political. It either challenges or reinforces some schism or stereotype. So what is the project going to say at the end of the day? What does it tell you about the world, or what does it challenge in terms of your world?

I think you have to be ready to switch gears and go with the team as a director, as opposed to superimposing your own strict idea of the story. There are very few directors that can micromanage and still come out with something that's living and breathing on a page. Wes Anderson is one of those .

I don't think there's a petty system of heaven and hell. The love of God is much more forgiving. I'm not a believer in a wrathful God at all.

I wouldn't want to be 20 now. I know so much more, and I'm much more comfortable in my skin, saggy as it is When I hear young girls complaining about superficial things You're at the peak of your physical beauty right now! Just enjoy it and stop worrying about your thighs being too big If you're upset with how you look at 25, life's going to be tough

At the end of your life, you are going to want to know that you made some kind of difference.

I've always had a really developed sense of justice. As a child, I would rotate my dolls' dresses for fear that they might come alive at midnight and one of them would always have the best dress on. Whatever it was that made me worry about my dolls I suppose has paid off in my career because, really, an actor is all about empathy and imagination. And those are the cornerstones of activism.

When I grew up in the church, we were praying because the Communists were going to come over and hang you upside down on a cross, and I so wanted to be a good person, and I had these rosary beads that I would sleep with every night, and I just wanted the blessed Virgin to be on my side.

I was very withdrawn and definitely played with dolls well into eighth grade. But I was the oldest of nine, and that grounded me in a way that I don't think I would have been grounded otherwise. So I was able to - or forced to - function practically. But I think, by nature, I was someone who lived in my head, in my imagination.

I always had a problem with original sin; I always had a problem with the exclusivity of the church and a lot of the things that the nuns taught me.

I feel it's easier to sit in the backseat and go, "Oh, yeah, let's go there." You're not worried about getting to the destination. But the guy or the woman who has to get you to the destination is worried about a lot of other things, so my job as an actor is to try as many things as possible, be as open as possible, listen, and keep my heart open.

We've legalized marijuana recently. Medical marijuana, but the rest will come.

We were friends with Jonathan Demme. We were all down on the West Side of New York, and I think I met Kurt [Vonnegut] through Edith [Demme]. And then I was lucky to do Who Am I This Time? [1982], which was an adaptation of his short story that Jonathan Demme directed with Chris Walken and I, and that really cemented the friendship.

I'll always rather be in a ship that's got a captain that has some vision.

So I would hope they would develop some kind of habit that involves understanding that their life is so full they can afford to give in all kinds of ways to other people. I consider that to be baseline spirituality.

Making love is like hitting a baseball. You just gotta relax and concentrate.

The trouble with being an activist is you end up like Eve and you get kicked out of the Garden of Eden. You know, Eve was the first person who thought for herself. And she still gets a bad rap. I named my daughter after her.

There wasn't space to mood-up. I think Rose Byrne was just extraordinary. Talk about a character that could be really unsympathetic at times. She just jumped in these scenes that go from anger to hysteria to crying to laughing and back to anger. I just marveled.

I was a voracious reader and the library fed my curiosity, imagination and my soul. I read by the shelf - biographies, fantasy - all and everything fed my dreams. Then as an adult whenever I would go on location the first thing we would do as a family is sign up at the closest library. Not only would we find books, but what was happening in that town, because the library is the head of the community.

Sometimes when you have to go into something, unless you're gifted and can just turn it on and off like a jukebox, you find someplace where there's nothing going on to get yourself into whatever state your character is entering into.

I look forward to being older, when what you look like becomes less and less an issue and what you are is the point.
(As quoted in Put Your Big Girl Panties on and Deal with it, Roz Van Meter, 2007)

You just can never count on a formula, on a movie that you think is going to be a big hit, and that's why you do it. You have to choose each one for what you think you'll learn and the fun you'll have. And maybe the cool people that you work with or a character that you're going to be able to explore ... You just keep your fingers crossed.

If you can just see all the children of the world as your own, all the mothers of the world as you are, we can make a huge difference.

I'd have conversations with the camera crew about what was going on in the scene, so that they were prepared to shoot it. I love the fact that when you work, you create this tribe.

I've read some of Kurt Vonnegut letters from when he was young. He was a prisoner of war, and even when he was in his early twenties, there were things mentioned that showed up in his novels. One of the sweetest things in those letters was him wanting to be a writer but doubting himself, not having confidence in himself.

I did study drama at Catholic U, but the undergraduates weren't put in productions, really, except as extras, and it wasn't a hands-on kind of thing at all. I couldn't afford to go to another college. And my grandparents lived in D.C., so I was able to live with them, and that's how I was able to afford it at all.

Now, Tim has been really, really busy, and it's been my job now to kind of deal with everything. And trying to figure out how we balance that, logistically it's a nightmare. But these little jobs make it much easier.

To each person, their own way of death - with dignity.

It helps me chill out and focus.

I feel my family's needs are a priority. I'm not comfortable with the idea of serving the many and ignoring my family.

Kurt Vonnegut wasn't a chatty guy, but when he spoke, it was always clear and very funny, in the way that he wrote, in a very specific kind of combination of word groupings and expressions that lived somewhere else.

I think looking at your own life, on- and offscreen, you can motivate anything, or you can delude yourself into anything.

I'm kind of a nerd, so whenever I get a chance to talk to an artist I really admire, I tend to gravitate to process.

When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.

When I tell people I'm a comedian they say, 'Oh, are you funny?' I say, 'No, it's not that kind of comedy.'

I hesitate to direct even though I feel I contribute a lot on a set.

Now, as I move through my fifties, I can be professional and domestic, creative and intellectual, patient and urgent. I have learned that we should never settle for someone else's definition of who we can be. Growing to this age, I realize, is kind of like feeling your voice deepen. It's still your voice, but it has more substance, and it sounds like it knows its own origins.

I'm happy to be considered desirable. I love it!

Like most parents in the US, they are trying, with a little help from UNICEF, to do the best they can to help their children reach their full potential ...

Never root for a team whose uniforms have elastic stretch waistbands.

How will the bombing of Baghdad, a city of five million, accomplish a regime change?

When I got the script for Thelma & Louise, when I met with the director, Ridley Scott, I said, "I don't want to do a revenge film. I'm not interested in doing that moment in the script after they shoot the truck, where it says they jump up and down and they're real happy about it".

I've just come back from Vegas, and I was in on the caucus process. It's insane. What a mess. And also with these particular candidates who are running, so many times I said, "I just wish Kurt [Vonnegut] were alive." This is like something he would be writing. This is just crazy stuff. I would love to hear his take on it.

In terms of our foreign policy, that's where we made a mistake after 9/11. Everyone's going, "Why, why, why," and there wasn't any investigation or learning from any of what we had been doing up to that time that had set us up.

I've tried them all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball.

This Catholic thing, I think what it does is it makes a place for mystery in a person. And even when the faith goes away, there's that space where you crave something bigger than yourself. For me, that's kind of where art came in, after that.

He has a very strong vision of what he wants.

When you run into someone in NY it is usually a pleasant surprise. When you run into someone in LA you usually had a car accident.

You have to take away the idea that something you do is right or wrong. I don't think there's a right or a wrong; I think there's an "it works" or "it doesn't work" for the whole. And that's why you need a director you trust, so you can just keep throwing out suggestions.

Sometimes what happens is that, when you micromanage actors and moments, it just doesn't quite live.

Before our kids start coming home from Iraq in body bags and women and children start dying in Baghdad, I need to know, what did Iraq do to us?

In the theater, you're so much more in charge as an actor. For better or for worse, you know what the audience is seeing. But you can be acting your socks off on film, and then you see the movie, and the camera is on the other actor, or they've cut out the lines you thought were significant, or they've adjusted the plot. So much of it is out of your control.

Happiness is the true beauty weapon.

It's important to just keep wanting whatever it is you want and fight for it, desperately.

The only time I've really been away from my kids to do work was doing Shall We Dance because they both were in camp and it was the first time in twenty years that I haven't been with my kids.

When my children wake up in the morning they know they will eat breakfast, get hugs from their parents, go to a good, safe school. Plates are full and store windows are glittering. But at the same time the great majority of the world's children and women stand - no - shiver on the precipice

It's still not easy to find roles that offer more complex images of women.

It's a miracle when something actually turns out well because there are so many ways for it to go wrong.

It is a different world than when I was growing up, and you started to just kind of maintain at thirty-five and just hope you can hope it together. People are a lot more vital than I am and doing all kinds of things and leading really important movements.

I don't like to plan. Very often, for me, acting is like loving; it's using the muscle that you use in loving, in that your heart feels open. Physically, you feel open. And so therefore your job is to enter, open, and listen. And see what happens.