Never lose yourself on the stage. Always act in your own person, as an artist. The moment you lose yourself on the stage marks the departure from truly living your part and the beginning of exaggerated false acting. Therefore, no matter how much you act, how many parts you take, you should never allow yourself any exception to the rule of using your own feelings. To break that rule is the equivalent of killing the person you are portraying, because you deprive him of a palpitating, living, human soul, which is the real source of life for a part.

At times of great stress it is especially necessary to achieve a complete freeing of the muscles

In life we listen to other people. Listen with varying degrees of concentration and attention, right? Actors must learn to listen in a different way.

All art is autobiographical - if it's not, it's not going to quicken on-stage, and it's not going to come alive.

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

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.

When an actor is completely absorbed by some profoundly moving objective so that he throws his whole being passionately into its execution, he reaches a state we call inspiration.