American Quotes

I like figuring out where I need to be mentally so that I'm not thinking about the camera and that it's second nature. I want to get to a place where I can exist within the confines of what you can do with filmmaking and not have to think about it.

I just got on Twitter because there was some MTV film blog that quoted me on something really innocuous that I supposedly said on Twitter before I was even on Twitter. So then I had to get on Twitter to say: 'This is me. I'm on Twitter. If there's somebody else saying that they're me on Twitter, the

I heard people saying they were going to become millionaires by the time they were 25 - that's gross and obnoxious, but in California it's looked on as an asset.

I happen to be a huge 'Lord of the Rings' fan. I do an annual marathon of the extended editions.

I guess my silly dream is to be on 'Game of Thrones.' I don't think that I can do that, but that's my silly dream. And there are a lot of American comedies, particularly on NBC, that I would, I would love to do.

I guess as long as people think of me for different ages, I'll trust their opinion. I remember noticing one year that Michelle Monaghan played 34 and 19, so I've kind of clung to that as my justification that I can be Jake Gyllenhaal's wife and a freshman in college in the same year.

I graduated from high school early so I could move to New York to do 'A Little Night Music' out of the New York City Opera.

I get really excited every time there's a female character who is really strong because a lot of females in film are really soft.

I filmed seven movies in 2011 and I think that was a mistake. I pushed myself too hard and I want to be able to come to work each day and give 100 percent. I guess I found out what my boundaries are.

I feel like people want there to be this mystery between film and theater, but I just kind of went where I got jobs, you know?

I feel like I'm still learning a lot. I think there's a tendency for people who are just doing their first couple of films that I see now where they seem to be really resentful of the technical limitations that come along with filmmaking.

I fall in love with characters when they're out of their element or are uncomfortable and you really feel for them in a knee-jerk sympathetic way.

I don't usually drink caffeine so that when I need it, it actually does something.

I definitely think it exercises an interesting muscle, auditioning for bad parts and trying to figure out how to make it real. I don't know what I'm talking about now.

I actually love actresses who look like they feel really natural. I like Patricia Clarkson, Laura Linney, Frances McDormand. Those are actresses where the second they show up on screen you're like, oh my gosh, this movie just got so much better.

Humility was an important part of the way I grew up. And I found that to be less common when I moved to California. That's not to say humble people don't exist there, but ambition seems really important.

An actor should always let humility outweigh ambition.

After we shot the first 'Twilight,' we organized our own wrap party. We really didn't know what this was going to be. Something like that can come at you unexpectedly, and you just have to try your best to deal with it.

You can relax more when you're playing a silly character than when you're playing a really rigid character. But to be fair, I think George Clooney is a bigger teenager than any of the 'Twilight' cast. He's the guy throwing a football at your head and then hiding around the corner, pretending it wasn

People like to make fun of the fans who camp out but people have renaissance fairs; people do Civil War re-enactments; people do what they like. I'm tired of hearing people rage on the fans. If you don't like 'Twilight,' don't buy a ticket.

My goal all along has just been to work and support myself. I've been really lucky to walk away from the 'Twilight' series unscathed. Somebody asked me recently what it's like to be a star. I thought that was the strangest question. If you saw my day-to-day life, the word 'star' just doesn't apply.

I think a gentleman is someone who holds the comfort of other people above their own. The instinct to do that is inside every good man, I believe. The rules about opening doors and buying dinner and all of that other 'gentleman' stuff is a chess game, especially these days.

We must... guarantee women control over their own reproductive decisions.

We must act swiftly in order to halt the rate of decay our planet faces.

The destruction of our environment and resources cannot be stemmed unless the growth of the world's population is stemmed and ultimately reduced.

If we do not voluntarily bring population growth under control in the next one or two decades, the nature will do it for us in the most brutal way, whether we like it or not.

Governments must now take a leading role in moving their nations in the right direction.

Education of both men and women is a wonderful contraceptive.

Many people and governments share the mistaken belief that science, with new, ingenious devices and techniques, can rescue us from the troubles we face without our having to mend our ways and change our patterns of activity. This is not so.

We are a government of laws. Any laws some government hack can find to louse up a man who's down.