Stella Adler Quotes

Your curse is that you have chosen a form that requires endless study .... It means you have to read, you have to observe, you have to think, so that when you turn your imagination on, it has the fuel to do its job.

Acting is in everything but the words.

Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.

Growth as an actor and as a human being are synonymous.

You will only fail to learn if you do not learn from failing.

The actor has to develop his body. The actor has to work on his voice. But the most important thing the actor has to work on is his mind.

The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation.

The only excuse for not coming to a class or a performance is death.

Actors need a kind of aggression, a kind of inner force. Don't be only one-sided, sweet, nice, good. Get rid of being average. Find the killer in you.

When you stand on the stage you must have a sense that you are addressing the whole world, and that what you say is so important the whole world must listen.

You'll begin to act when you can forget your technique - when it is so securely inside you that you need not call upon it consciously.

You act with your soul. That's why you all want to be actors, because your souls are not used up by life.

Emotions aren't doable. Actions are doable, and if you do them correctly, they prompt the feelings.

You have to get beyond your own precious inner experiences.

Your job as actors is to understand the size of what you say, to understand what's beneath the word.

Don’t use your conscious past. Use your creative imagination to create a past that belongs to your character. I don’t want you to be stuck with your own life. It’s too little.

When an acting teacher tells a student 'that wasn't honest work' or 'that didn't seem real,' what does this mean? In life, we are rarely 'truthful' or 'honest' or 'real'. And characters in plays are almost never 'truthful' or 'honest' or 'real'. What exactly do teachers even mean by these words? A more useful question is: What is the story the actor was telling in their work? An actor is always telling a story. We all are telling stories, all the time. Story: that is what it is all about.

Your talent is in your choice.

It's not enough to have talent. You have to have a talent for your talent.

Happy children should not try to be artists. You have to be born with a broken heart and a sense of loneliness inside. I never had a happy moment as a child myself.

Acting can be the healthiest profession in the world, because it allows you to do things you can't do in real life. It allows you to understand more than just what life provides you.

You'll never really be great unless you aim high.

Life is boring. The weather is boring. Actors must not be boring.

One way we can enliven the imagination is to push it toward the illogical. We're not scientists. We don't always have to make the logical, reasonable leap.

To grow: that is your deepest and truest need when you say, 'I want to be an actor.'