Margaret Atwood Quotes

I've always believed in trying to be as open as possible. I think it almost comes with the job - if you can bare your emotions, it makes for better acting.

The most defenseless tenderness and the bloodiest of powers have a similar need of confession. Western man has become a confessing animal.

When you write, you're always revealing a difficult part of yourself. It may not be a part of yourself that looks as difficult - there are parts that look more difficult - but in fact, they are all difficult, and you get kind of used to doing that. It is sort of the nature of the thing.

I wanted to tell you everything. And that hurt because some things were too scary. Some things even I didn’t understand. How could I tell someone—someone I was really talking to for the first time—everything I was thinking? I couldn’t. It was too soon.

You can't express emotion without giving information.

Acting is about giving yourself away, like the U2 song 'With or Without You.' You just don't stay behind a character and make people laugh or cry. At some point you have to take off that mask, and when you do, you're a human being, not just an actor. After all, I'm Catherine the person first. You share that.

I'm kind of an emotional exhibitionist.

Anytime you work with materials that are deep parts of yourself, you feel revulsion at showing things about yourself that you don't want people to know.

I have a hard time not wearing my heart on my sleeve and answering people honestly. You know, my friends warn me that I should be more guarded 'cause sometimes I am too honest and open, but it's also just who I am.

I think there's a little bit of idiot in everybody and I think some people cover it better than others but I think I am very much a guy who wears his heart on his sleeve.

I heard this wonderful quote - "Only the brave show what they love." It's so-embarrassing to approach somebody and say you want to look at them. But without that risk taking, nothing can happen, so I have to make myself vulnerable. What I think is the unifying aspect in people that I like is that they have a sense of their own vulnerability, and I respond to that.

I think a lot of people don't wear their hearts on their sleeves. I think people should, but a lot of people don't. People may be a bit taken back sometimes about how honest I am and how open I am. But I'm happier this way - it's a good thing for me.

I don't think that there's much hiding that actors can do. If you're doing good work, you're showing a part of yourself to someone.

And I think if you're going to be with somebody, you owe it to them to show yourself.

In a Man's Letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirrour of his breast.

I think that, for a lot of us, the closer we get to showing people who we really are, that's where we feel the most uncomfortable, the most vulnerable. But it's also where the healthiest growth comes from. Like when I can really open myself up to someone and show someone who I really am, it's amazing when it happens.

You shared one of the most intimate things that ever happened to you - falling in love with someone who wasn't brave enough to love you back. Your relieving yourself of your 'secret' is as much about wanting to honestly connect as it is about exhibition. We are all made better by your decision to share publicly.

My truths are all foreknown,This anguish self-revealed.I'm naked to the bone,With nakedness my shield.

The act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help.

Acting is like letting your pants down; you're exposed.

It's just that I don't want to be somebody's crush. If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it too.

Everyone cries sometimes, Tory. There are some pains that run too deep for even the strongest to take without breaking. I don’t think any less of you for it. (Acheron)

The stories that are too personally vulnerable to write are the ones that must be told.

Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.

I want people to know what they didn't know about me. I just wanted them to know the real side.