Vanessa Redgrave Quotes

On one occasion, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jeremy Irons and myself were due to appear at the Sarajevo film festival and were turned off a UN plane on orders from Geneva. We had to get local journalists to transport the films in for us. I tell you this only to demonstrate that festivals can be a lifeline. But, after all the difficulties I'd had in getting there, in 1996 I found myself being flown in on a four-seater RAF plane as an official guest, endorsed by the British Embassy. Ironically, the film I was to present was Mission: Impossible.

We all come to the theater with baggage; The baggage of our daily lives, the baggage of our problems, the baggage of our tragedies, the baggage of being tired. It doesn't matter what age you are. But if our hearts get opened and released - well, that's what theater can do, and does sometimes, and everyone is thankful when that happens.

I think the theatre is as essential to civilization as safe, pure water.

Theater helps people keep sane.

What I didn't understand was that the personal and the political go together. I felt at the time I had to sacrifice my children's present for their future. It seemed an either/or. I didn't realise that by being with one's own children I would have had a better understanding of the ones who are not my own. I was thinking of them but I didn't spend the time that they needed from me. It's a tribute to them that they came out so well.

I've opened my mouth on a lot of subjects. And I thought the more prestige you get, I'd have the power to do what I like. It's not true.

A theater is being given over to market forces, which means that a whole generation that should be able to do theater as well as see it is being completely deprived.

As a mother you have got to have a view for now and a view for the future.

The stage is actor's country. You have to get your passport stamped every so often or they take away your citizenship.

The people I admire most are those who struggle for everyone.

Upon accepting her Oscar for "Julia," 1978: "My dear colleagues, I thank you very very much for this tribute to my work. I think that Jane Fonda and I have done the best work of our lives, and I salute you and I pay tribute to you, and I think you should.

Integrity is so perishable in the summer months of success.

You can't be striving to please; you must be striving to get to the heart of the matter.

The society Shakespeare knew was heading for tremendous change, and he seems to have recognized that and written about it in a coded way. I understand those codes, I think.

A conservative frame of mind is very limiting for an actor, and a human being, too.

Shakespeare lets us see real people undergoing real processes, with real feelings.

Theater and poetry were what helped people stay alive and want to go on living.