Debra Messing Quotes

It's always been really important for me to try to maintain a balanced life, professional and personal, and this was absolutely something that my husband and I had hoped for.

My biggest fantasy love affair was with Dustin Hoffman. It's so bizarre. Also Anthony Hopkins.

My parents always made education and school the number one priority. They believed that an education is the best gift you can give to your child.

I had already just sort of decided okay it's just never going to happen. So when they - when my name was called it was an out of body, you know, just glorious moment. It shouldn't mean that much. But, you know, I'd be lying if I didn't say that it meant the world to know that my peers appreciated what I was doing.

It's essentially encouraging parents, teachers, and caretakers to remind children how special they are on a regular basis.

I would absolutely be a litigator. I watch Court TV every day.

I'm fascinated by diamonds. When I put diamonds on, my hands start to shake.

I think for me it's just a matter of staying keyed into my lifelong friends from New York and family. And, you know, I'm pretty solitary. I'm a homebody. So I don't get out much to get into trouble

But I've become completely obsessed with taking photos on my iPhone. I have like 400 apps.

Everything has to do with murder.

I'm a mom, and I'm always looking for ways to encourage, support, and embolden my son to help make him believe in himself.

Well I would say that, you know, I agree in part with that it [The Starter Wife] is fantasy and it is a romp in that, you know, the comedy stems from shining a light on the sort of more extreme aspects of the Hollywood culture. So, you know, anytime you turn up the gas, so to speak, on the stove and make things more extreme it becomes funny. But I do think that, you know, the other half of the show is absolutely relatable and that's been an important goal of ours.

Whatever consequences come as a result, in terms of work, I'm fully prepared to embrace because it's a priority to me to be a mother.

Okay well - no that is a very real thing seven-year-olds asking for BlackBerrys and cell phones and things like that. And that's one of the things I love most about the show [The Starter Wife] is the social satire.

You know, unfortunately divorce it happens in Kansas as much as it does in Hollywood. And, you know, women having to start over at 40, you know, for the first time in their life having to find a career and being a single parent and having to date. You know, all of those things happen everywhere in the world. It's not just Los Angeles. So I would defend the fact that there are, you know, there are other reasons to watch than just to get a laugh.

We have so many different options now and ways to communicate digitally. But I don't think anything is more meaningful or powerful than a hand-written letter.

I come from the New York theatre world, and I have a lot of gay male friends, so this friendship of Will and Grace's isn't such a stretch.

I'm just eating really, really clean healthy foods.

Oh it's fantastic because I get to whip people like David into shape and tell them to go get me coffee. Kidding - okay.

I'm naturally lean and I'm constantly walking.

Honesty is probably the sexiest thing a man can give to a woman.

It was hard to find somebody who could juggle both. And so we were really just focusing more on that. We figured, okay, if we're lucky enough to find somebody then, you know, the audience will get over it in one episode.

You can't control chemistry. You can't control, you know, just similar aesthetics creatively. And, you know, David and I didn't know each other prior to this. And we get along famously. So it's - I feel very lucky.

I just think of couture clothing as wearable art. So from - to that extent I, you know, I love having the opportunity to just even be able to touch and look at, you know, these pieces of design. In terms of, you know, is it stressful and does it take a lot of time. It's mostly stressful because you're there because you're nominated.

You just hope that you will get the opportunity to do what you love and pay your bills, and that is being a success as an actor.

It's the job that I take most seriously in my life and I think it's the hardest job.

As scary as change can be and as much as I might resist it, there's always some unkown gift that comes out of it. I really never thought you could begin again. You can.

Oh Young Frankenstein - that's right, Body Heat, Raiders Of The Lost Ark. I mean, you know, it - they just keep going on and on and on - Mission: Impossible. And, you know, I think that the writers are having so much fun now with them that, you know, half the time, you know, people are just sitting around saying - trying to think of what's a great movie to copy.

Well I remember the first thing that from coming from New York that just stunned me and I couldn't understand was that you valet park for everything. Even - you valet park to go to the dry cleaner. And that, you know, that just blew my mind. I was like, okay, you have to pay $5 to a guy to just drop off your dry cleaning. And so that, to me, was nuts - the fact you're always arriving.

Repeat after me: 'I am doing the best that I can.' That's the mantra I keep trying to tell myself, 'I'm doing the best I can.'

I'd be devastated if my son grows up to be a hetero. I mean, I'd still love him ... but as a parent you just envision a certain life for your child. I mean, if he's straight, think of all the fabulous things he's going to miss out on. When I think my son might never know the joys of having a quarter share on Fire Island and walking through Judy Garland Memorial Park on the way to the Meat Rack.

I'm a little commitment phobic, in that I've always been someone who likes to take things one year at a time because as we all know, a year can change everything in your life.

Creatively I just enjoy challenging myself in different genres.

I love every aspect of the show. I've been very involved. It was important for me to be very involved in, you know, all of the creative elements. And so, you know, it - David, you know, being brought onto the show, you know, that - I always just wanted to make sure that we maintained the sophistication and intelligence of (the) - and the comedy that we were able to establish in the mini-series.

I know there must be something I should explore about that with my therapist.

And I don't know where to find Ashley Danfield and all the other lovely commentators who show me live courtroom trials. To me, you know, I'm obsessed with it. Like I think maybe if I wasn't an actor I'd be a litigator. But, you know, it's always just shocking to see what happens in real life because most of the things that you see on those trials if you tried to write them into a TV series you would say oh gosh, no one would believe that would ever happen. But yet they always do in real life.

There's always - somehow a red carpet everywhere. And I think that, you know, it's a fantasyland out here, you know. It's beautiful. It's sunny all the time. You know, there are beautiful people everywhere because you're not allowed to cross the Los Angeles city lines unless you're beautiful or skinny - joking kind of.

And often when things turn to TV series there are so many different people with different agendas that things can morph. And so, you know, that was why having the executive producer title was important to me because even if I was the star and I had a concern, you know, that concern would only go so far. But having the title of executive producer actually makes them have to actually listen to me complain.

I don't exercise - that's something I struggle with.

It [going from mini-series to series] was never even discussed because it [The Starter Wife] was, you know, an adaptation of a novel. And we - the mini-series encompassed the whole novel. And so it was always going to be a finite sort of event. And then I imagine when people started to really respond to the show and then we got ten Emmy nominations, USA sort of said, "Oh, I think maybe we have something here."

I think that there's etiquette for every means of communication. People are very judgmental and have strict rules. I don't think you should end a relationship with a Post-it note. I know some people who get offended when an e-mail is sent as a "thank you" note instead of a hand-written card.

If I have a pocket, then I'll have lip balm, my keys, and $10 cash.

Do what makes you happy. And when it doesn't make you happy anymore, make a change -- without fear.

Court TV. I can't stop watching it. I am absolutely obsessed! If I'm not reading a book or spending time with my husband, my friends or my dog, I am watching Court TV

You know, making fun of the excessiveness and the priorities that are most stilted out here which does make it difficult to have a very sort of grounded, normal life because there's really nothing normal about Hollywood.

Well first of all I was nine weeks pregnant at the time and no one knew it. So it was - it had a whole other meaning for me not just because I had to let the dress out, you know, every few days before the actual day. But, you know, because that was the, you know, more important than anything else that was going on in my life. But in terms of actually winning I think I had been nominated four or five times before then. And every one of my co-stars had won up until that point.

I am a fan of all of the same shows that David just listed. And then I also have a weird obsession with Court TV, which is now truTV - I don't know if you know that. Yeah they changed names. I don't know why they did that but they did. It was a little disconcerting to me at first. But I've gotten over it.

I love London. I love England. We were out in the countryside and I had the time of my life