Stella Adler Quotes

Your talent is in your imagination. The rest is lice.

The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation.

The teacher has to inspire, to agitate. You cannot teach acting. You can only stimulate what's already there.

In your choices lies your talent.

You can't be boring. Life is boring. The weather is boring. Actors must not be boring.

It takes three things to make it in this business: the tenacity of a bulldog, the hide of a rhinoceros and a good home to come home to.

Get a stage tone, darling, an energy. Never go on stage without your motor running.

You must get away from the real thing because the real thing will limit your acting and cripple you. To think of your own mother's death each time you want to cry onstage is schizophrenic and sick.

Acting requires a creative and compassionate attitude. It must aim to lift life up to a higher level of meaning and not tear it down or demean it. The actor's search is a generous quest for that larger meaning. That's why acting is never to be done passively.

Use your creative imagination to create a past that belongs to your character. I don't want you to be stuck with your own life. It's too little.