Tyne Daly

The director's job is full of all sorts of annoyances and details - like how many cars are on the street. Ugh. I don't want it. I like my gig. And I feel that for the next 30 years or so I can keep learning more about it.

Women are usually only interesting to studio executives when they are fecund, between the ages of 15 and 30. I decided to get through the really tough patch, around 50, by just cutting my price and playing ten years older. I didn't want to have to wait until I was an old lady to play one.

I never played the 'decoration,' I always played the one who suffered. And then I got very lucky in my middle career, when I started playing the hero, which at that point was quite rare for women.

I was raised to be in service to something larger than myself. A lot of actors concentrate on what they will get out of the profession, rather than what they can offer it. The way I see it, if you come with something to offer, you can offer it forever.

My job always is to play a person, not to judge her.

The art of acting is to pitch good. You do the pitching and hope that the other person catches the ball and does some good pitching back to you.

There was this wonderful trick of going to the theater with my parents and sitting in the audience under the watchful eye of an usher, and then these other people would come on the stage: They spoke differently and had different clothes and hair. Afterward, they would come back, and they were my parents again. It was magic.

I am a greedy actor in the sense that I like the big bites. Put a big fat steak in front of me, and I will eat it.

Many more people saw me on TV than will ever get to see me on stage, but I do love being in the same room as the people I'm telling the story to.

When I got married, my marriage was illegal in 17 states because my husband had a different skin color than I did. And we saw those laws go down one at a time.

I don't want people instructing me what to do with my body; I don't want the government to tell me what I can do in my bedroom, with my body, or with whoever I choose to love.

Love is as strict as acting. If you want to love somebody, stand there and do it. If you don't, don't. There are no other choices.