Meryl Streep famous quotes

Everything that truly makes us happy is quite simple - love, sex and food!
-- Meryl Streep

#Sex #Simple #Simple Love

For me, clothes are kind of a character. They're more interesting in those terms.
-- Meryl Streep

#Character #Clothes #Interesting

The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.
-- Meryl Streep

#Inspirational #Compassion #Fundraising

The idea that people do very bad things for sometimes very good reasons, feels reasons.
-- Meryl Streep

#Ideas #People #Sometimes

It's amazing what you can get if you quietly, clearly and authoritatively demand it.
-- Meryl Streep

#Demand

When you're an actor and there's no music, you have to sort of bring it all yourself.
-- Meryl Streep

#Actors

Everything we say signifies; everything counts, that we put out into the world. It impacts on kids, it impacts on the zeitgeist of the time.
-- Meryl Streep

#Kids #Creativity #Impact

I really worked very hard to bring my voice back because I used to have a good voice, and to try to do my exercises that I remember from Yale and all the things in the olden days, clearing your sinuses and all that.
-- Meryl Streep

#Exercise #Yale #Voice

What makes you different or weird, that's your strength.
-- Meryl Streep

#Stay Strong #Strong #Different

The fairy tale that really scared me was Bluebeard. That's the one where he just kills one after another of these woman, these wives, that he lures up to the castle. I just think about fairy tales as stories women told their children to warn them? To keep them safe, to make sure they married up, all the things that would have safeguarded them in the olden days.
-- Meryl Streep

#Children #Thinking #Wife

I think your self emerges more clearly over time.
-- Meryl Streep

#Thinking #Self #Acting

You can't sing when you're upset. You can't sing when you're crying. You get all congested and disgusting.
-- Meryl Streep

#Upset #Cry #Disgusting

I need to go where people are serious about acting.
-- Meryl Streep

#People #Acting #Serious

I found it unbearable when I allow the song to meet the music, to allow the story to meet the music.
-- Meryl Streep

#Song #Unbearable #Stories

My job is usually to express emotion as freely as possible.
-- Meryl Streep

#Jobs #Acting #Emotion

We all make the mistake thinking that how you look makes you more worthy of love.
-- Meryl Streep

#Mistake #Thinking #Looks

Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials.
-- Meryl Streep

#Mom #Mother #Essentials

Being an actor lets me be a million different things.
-- Meryl Streep

#Different #Actors #Let Me

I have always regarded myself as the pillar of my life.
-- Meryl Streep

#Self Esteem #Pillars #Esteem

To imagine myself in different ways comes from my beginnings in the theatre. People are more accepting when you go 'apparently', 'wildly' afield from who you are or where you were brought up.
-- Meryl Streep

#People #Theatre #Way

I think the best role models for women are people who are fruitfully and confidently themselves, who bring light into the world.
-- Meryl Streep

#Thinking #Light #Role Models

If you raise children, you forget what age they are. I mean you don't literally forget, but you treat a 13-year-old like she's 10 and there's a big difference in those three years and they can't stand it. They want to be treated like they're 17 when they're 13. And sometimes you can't help thinking of them as if they were 10 or 10 months old because it's all so recent. So we do overprotect sometimes.
-- Meryl Streep

#Children #Mean #Thinking

I can't stand most things that I see.
-- Meryl Streep

I don't like to be gone all weekend and at night too. Because for 20 years, I've had children who are in school.
-- Meryl Streep

#Children #School #Night

I think that you find your own way. You have your own rules. You have your own understanding of yourself, and that's what you're going to count on. In the end, it's what feels right to you. Not what your mother told you. Not what some actress told you. Not what anybody else told you but the still, small voice.
-- Meryl Streep

#Mother #Thinking #Voice

All an actor has, I think, is their heart, really,...that's the place you go for your inspiration. If my heart wasn't filled with them, where would I get stuff? What would I have to express?
-- Meryl Streep

#Inspiration #Heart #Thinking

It is interesting how fashion filters down and we discover in the "Devil Wears Prada" that we're all prey to trends, even if we think we are not.
-- Meryl Streep

#Fashion #Thinking #Interesting

On every film, the clothes are half the battle in creating the character. I have a great deal of opinion about how my people are presented. We show a great deal by what we put on our bodies.
-- Meryl Streep

#Character #Clothes #Creating

Some people hold themselves above the fashion business but are still complicit and fall prey to it.
-- Meryl Streep

#Fashion #Fall #People

Every single decision I make about what material I do, what I'm putting out in the world, is because of my children.
-- Meryl Streep

#Children #Decision #World

I just think that we're all trying to make ourselves emaciated, in order to pretend that we're all disappearing, as we move forward in every level of society and it's so frightening. This is all a big reaction to the fact that there are more women in medical school than there are men now and I am pretty sure it will be the same soon in law schools and in business.
-- Meryl Streep

#Moving #School #Men

Integrate what you believe in every single area of your life. Take your heart to work and ask the most and best of everybody else, too.
-- Meryl Streep

#Motivation #Inspiration #Believe

I think that we pay much more attention to fashion and our hair, skin and foreheads, our abdominal muscles and shoes than what is happening in the world. We willingly take that 'drug' and go along with that.
-- Meryl Streep

#Fashion #Thinking #Shoes

The interesting thing about being a mother is that everyone wants pets, but no one but me cleans the kitty litter.
-- Meryl Streep

#Mom #Mother #Parenting

Sometimes it's easier for people who are in authority to be authoritarian, because people know where you stand.
-- Meryl Streep

#People #Sometimes #Authority

Expensive clothes are a waste of money.
-- Meryl Streep

#Reality #Clothes #Waste

I think it is typical for many men to have problems when their wives make more money then they do, or when their wives are higher on the corporate ladder than they find themselves. I think that often is an issue.
-- Meryl Streep

#Men #Thinking #Issues

Acting is not about being someone different. It's finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there.
-- Meryl Streep

#Acting #Different #Finding Myself

I don't think we can say that all working women will get divorced - it's so dangerous to make these things emblematic of anything - but having said that, every person who has a big, important job and tries to have a family, has to make decisions every single minute.
-- Meryl Streep

#Jobs #Thinking #Decision

I want to feel my life while I'm in it.
-- Meryl Streep

#Life #Inspire #Want

You are thinking about where your brain is at any time. It's very tricky but it's why women are very well suited to rule the world in the future, because of the multi-tasking they do and their ability to be moving in 15 directions at once. It's the women who behave like men, who focus in that singular way with the blinkers on, who have problems. You get a lot more done that way maybe, but you also lose the perception of who's behind you, what's going on, the 360 degrees of it, the whole picture of life that we do have as women.
-- Meryl Streep

#Moving #Men #Thinking

My family really does come first. It always did and always will.
-- Meryl Streep

#Family #Firsts #Doe

I do honestly think that if women were running the world there would be more investment in peace, because basically as women we do not want to see our children killed. Maybe I am completely idealistic, but until we see women in equal positions of power in the world, I just think that we are doomed.
-- Meryl Streep

#Running #Children #Thinking

Obsession is an attractive thing. People who are really, really interested and good at one thing and smart are attractive, if they're men.
-- Meryl Streep

#Smart #Men #People

People have to make their own decisions about their lives.
-- Meryl Streep

#People #Decision

Some people are filled by compassion and a desire to do good, and some simply don't think anything's going to make a difference.
-- Meryl Streep

#Thinking #Compassion #Differences

I feel very strongly that we make decisions about what we're giving to the world, what we're withholding from the world, by virtue of what we put on our bodies.
-- Meryl Streep

#Giving #Decision #Body

I couldn't care less about fashion. If I had taken any clothes home, they would have remained in my closet for the rest of their existence.
-- Meryl Streep

#Fashion #Taken #Home

How do I do that preparation [for film]? Just an immersion. I have a musician's, I guess, ear for the sound of the voice but it's also important to me, in the case of [playing] someone who is controversial, to get the outlines of the character right because how they present themselves to the world has a great deal to do with how people feel about them.
-- Meryl Streep

#Character #Voice #People

You can't get spoiled if you do your own ironing.
-- Meryl Streep

#Wisdom #Women #Self Reliance

I think the most liberating thing I did early on was to free myself from any concern with my looks as they pertained to my work.
-- Meryl Streep

#Inspirational #Thinking #Acting

I never look a gift horse in the mouth. And I've been really, really lucky. My career has been given to me by the people I've worked with. The actors, the directors, the cinematographers, the writers, all of whom gave me the opportunity to work in the way that I have and I'm really grateful.
-- Meryl Streep

#Horse #Grateful #Opportunity

The formula of happiness and success is just, being actually yourself, in the most vivid possible way you can.
-- Meryl Streep

#Way #Happiness And Success #Just Being

People want what they want. Sometimes you just have to walk in defiance of it and just be yourself.
-- Meryl Streep

#Being Yourself #People #Want

For me, clothes are kind of character; I don't follow fashion or understand trends.
-- Meryl Streep

#Fashion #Character #Clothes

I guess a normal woman would find it extremely enjoyable to wear fancy clothes. For me, I didn't enjoy it. It felt like a straight jacket.
-- Meryl Streep

#Clothes #Fancy #Normal

Being a celebrity has taught me to hide, but being an actor has opened my soul.
-- Meryl Streep

#Soul #Taught #Actors

In my own life, I have noticed when I have been meeting directors, that the same sentence with the same inflection can be said by a man, like: "Get me this." But if the same thing is said by a woman, it's seen as harsh and unacceptable. That always fascinates me.
-- Meryl Streep

#Men #Directors #Harsh

I had this sort of idolatry for certain actors who preceded me, people who inspired me, so I'm honored to be that way for young actors.
-- Meryl Streep

#People #Actors #Way

I feel much more comfortable dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. "Devil Wears Prada" did not make me change my style. But it has made me appreciate the people who do this every morning in a serious way, get dressed up and really put together that look. I mean, wow. It's amazing.
-- Meryl Streep

#Morning #Mean #Jeans

Take your heart to work and ask the most and best of everybody.
-- Meryl Streep

#Inspirational #Heart

Acting has to reach everybody on some level - it's a communication of feeling - but as far as judging the work is concerned, it is, I think, something that actors know about.
-- Meryl Streep

#Communication #Thinking #Judging

All an actor has is their blind faith that they are who they say they are today, in any scene.
-- Meryl Streep

#Acting #Actors #Today

I don't have time to read a lot. And when I do, I read things that have just the facts.
-- Meryl Streep

#Facts

Put blinders on to those things that conspire to hold you back, especially the ones in your own head.
-- Meryl Streep

#Motivational #Change #Positive

Most of the great practitioners of the art of acting know exactly what they're doing; even in the best, most successful moments, when they let go of the awareness of what they are doing, they still, somewhere deep inside their body, know what they're doing. There is a craft.
-- Meryl Streep

#Letting Go #Art #Successful

It is well that the earth is round that we do not see too far ahead.
-- Meryl Streep

#Reality #Earth #Wells

I don't have very much interest in trends and fashions. I don't follow the fashion shows and stuff like that into my real life. But I'm very, very interested in how people put themselves together, how women and men announce themselves to the world, through what they put on their bodies. Whether we choose Birkenstocks or whether we choose Burberry - it all signifies something and it's really interesting to me.
-- Meryl Streep

#Fashion #Real #Men

You have to embrace getting older. Life is precious, and when you've lost a lot of people, you realize that each day is a gift.
-- Meryl Streep

#People #Getting Older #Each Day

I had a number of great teachers and the ones that really were the strongest influences on me were women. They were really, really smart and interesting women.
-- Meryl Streep

#Teacher #Smart #Numbers

Wrinkled, wrinkled little star... hope they never see the scars.
-- Meryl Streep

#Stars #Littles #Scar

She [ Anne Hathaway] is just a delicious talent. I think she can delight us for years and years in lots and lots of different things.Her own personality is so appealing and fresh and open and warm. I think she can have a unique career.
-- Meryl Streep

#Unique #Thinking #Years

Young people who learn the arts do better in every phase of their lives.
-- Meryl Streep

#Art #People #Phases

All that attention to the perfect lighting, the perfect this, the perfect that, I find terribly annoying.
-- Meryl Streep

#Perfect #Annoyed #Attention

For young women, I would say don't worry so much about your weight. Girls spend way too much time thinking about that, and there are better things. For young men, and women, too, what makes you different or weird-that's your strength. Everyone tries to look a cookie-cutter kind of way, and actually the people who look different are the ones who get picked up. I used to hate my nose. Now I don't. It's OK.
-- Meryl Streep

#Girl #Hate #Men

Integrate what you believe in every single area of your life. Take your heart to work and ask the most and best of everybody else, too. Don't let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth - don't let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency....
-- Meryl Streep

#Believe #Heart #Character

We need art as much as we need good works. You need it like food. You need it for inspiration, to keep going on the days that you're low. We need each other in that way.
-- Meryl Streep

#Art #Inspiration #Way

I believe in imagination. I did Kramer vs. Kramer before I had children. But the mother I would be was already inside me.
-- Meryl Streep

#Mother #Children #Believe

Everyone is interesting. Everyone has something unexpected to offer and the job of acting is to pull it out of each other.
-- Meryl Streep

#Jobs #Interesting #Acting

My advice: Don't waste so much time worrying about your skin or your weight. Develop what you do, what you put your hands on in the world.
-- Meryl Streep

#Hands #Worry #Advice

I'm a pain in the ***** to all of the costume designers with whom I work because I have very strong feelings about the subject.
-- Meryl Streep

#Strong #Pain #Feelings

I have a theory that movies operate on the level of dreams, where you dream yourself.
-- Meryl Streep

#Dream #Levels #Theory

You just have to keep on doing what you do. It's the lesson I get from my husband; he just says, Keep going. Start by starting.
-- Meryl Streep

#Death #Husband #Badass

The work will stand, no matter what.
-- Meryl Streep

#Acting #Matter

It's bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children's health than the pediatrician.
-- Meryl Streep

#Funny Inspirational #Children #Food

You don't have to be famous. You just have to make your mother and father proud of you.
-- Meryl Streep

#Inspiring #Graduation #Mother

I can become you for a second and you can become me and this lifts us up.
-- Meryl Streep

#Relationship

One of the most important keys to acting is curiosity. I am curious to the point of being nosy. What that means is you want to devour lives. You're eager to put on their shoes and wear their clothes and have them become a part of you. All people contain mystery, and when you act, you want to plumb that mystery until everything is known to you
-- Meryl Streep

#Mean #Shoes #Clothes

I follow no doctrine. I don't belong to a church or a temple or a synagogue or an ashram.
-- Meryl Streep

#Church #Doctrine #Temples

Listening is everything. Listening is the whole deal. That's what I think. And I mean that in terms of before you work, after you work, in between work, with your children, with your husband, with your friends, with your mother, with your father. It's everything. And it's where you learn everything.
-- Meryl Streep

#Mother #Husband #Children

I just take every day is a miracle and I'm really glad that I'm still working and that people are not sick of me, even though even I'm sick of me a little bit.
-- Meryl Streep

#Sick #People #Miracle

That consciousness of quality, and the need to demand it can galvanize your energies, not just in your work, but in a rigorous exercise of mind and heart in every aspect of your life.
-- Meryl Streep

#Heart #Exercise #Mind

We change who we are to fit the exogenous of our time, and not just strategically or to our own advantage, sometimes sympathetically without our even knowing it for the betterment of the whole group.
-- Meryl Streep

#Knowing #Who We Are #Groups

My success has depended wholly on putting things over on people, so I'm not sure that I'm that great a role model. I am, however, an expert on pretending to be an expert on pretending to be an expert.
-- Meryl Streep

#Role Models #People #Roles

If you have been touched by the success fairy, people think you know why. People think success breeds enlightenment and you are duty-bound to spread around like manure. Fertilize those young minds!
-- Meryl Streep

#Thinking #People #Mind

You can have a perfectly horrible day where you doubt your talent... Or that you're boring and they're going to find out that you don't know what you're doing.
-- Meryl Streep

#Doubt #Talent #Boring

Teachers perform major miracles in America, daily.
-- Meryl Streep

#Teacher #America #Miracle

My feeling about fears is, if you voice your fears, they may come true. I'm superstitious enough to believe that.
-- Meryl Streep

#Believe #Voice #Feelings

You have been told that Real Life is not like college, and you have been correctly informed. Real Life is more like high school.
-- Meryl Streep

#Real #School #College

If you make the tough decisions, people will hate you today. But they will thank you for generations.
-- Meryl Streep

#Hate #People #Decision