A true priest is aware of the presence of the altar during every moment that he is conducting a service. It is exactly the same way that a true artist should react to the stage all the time he is in the theater. An actor who is incapable of this feeling will never be a true artist.

You'll never see any two good actors approach a role in the same way.

The main difference between the art of the actor and all other arts is that every other [non-performing] artist may create whenever he is in the mood of inspiration. But the artist of the stage must be the master of his own inspiration, and must know how to call it forth at the hour announced on the posters of the theatre. This is the chief secret of our art.

The character has to have some kind of arch. The character has to go through an event, and be changed by the human event.

Never allow yourself externally to portray anything that you have not inwardly experienced and which is not even interesting to you.

Fear your admirers! Learn in time to hear, understand, and love the cruel truth about yourselves!

We have as many planes of speech as does a painting planes of perspective which create perspective in a phrase. The most important word stands out most vividly defined in the very foreground of the sound plane. Less important words create a series of deeper planes.