We were brought up in the school that teaches: You do what the script tells you. Deliver the goods without comment. Live it-do it-or shut up. After all, the writer is what's important. If the script is good and you don't get in its way, it will come off okay. I never discussed a script with Spence [Spencer Tracy]; we just did it. The same with Hank [Henry Fonda] in On Golden Pond. Naturally and unconsciously we joined into what I call a musical necessity-the chemistry that brings out the essence of the characters and the work.

What acting means is that you've got to get out of your own skin.

I think most of the people involved in any art always secretly wonder whether they are really there because they're good or there because they're lucky.

Not everyone is lucky enough to understand how delicious it is to suffer.

I find a woman's point of view much grander and finer than a man's.

Listen to the song of life.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.