Charles Durning Quotes

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.

I think the hardest thing I've had to learn is that just because people might speak a certain way in real life doesn't mean it's engaging in the theater.

Acting is doing, because everything you say or do is some kind of an action, some kind of a verb. You're always connected to the other person through some kind of action.

Theatre is the principal job of an actor. An actor's job is to tell a story to someone in a room. TV and film can be great and I really love doing it, but it is a different way of telling a story.

It's sort of the most important thing for acting, is to listen to the person you're dealing with.

I hope I'm always convincing when I act!

Acting is a mysterious process.

As soon as you get two actors in a room and they're locking eyes, they're doing a scene.

It's all performing; that's what we do in life. We talk, we look, and we hear, and we listen. Your life is a performance.

Acting is not about anything romantic, not even fantasy, although you do create fantasy.

Acting is very immediate.

I enjoy acting when you really hit it right.

The most important part of acting is listening. So always act like you’re listening.

When you're always onstage, you really have to focus on listening and reacting.

That's what acting is. You're not alone. It's reacting. That's what we do.

Acting is about being in the moment and audiences are smart to know what is authentic and what is not.

I love working in theater because it's such a challenge to have the audience right there in front of you. If you mess up, you have to figure it out and keep going. There's no take two! I do hope to return to the stage someday. I really love to sing.

Theatre demands different muscles and different aspects of one's personality.

As rewarding as a good film role can be, there is just nothing like getting up on a stage and taking an audience for a ride.

Even when I was in school shows, in elementary school doing plays, I'd always go off book and start improvising.

It's an acting job - acting natural.

Action is drama. If we cannot make the audience laugh, smile or cry with us, we are not actors.

I've done a lot of theater, and I know that it's a different audience each time who doesn't know the story, and we have to tell it.

Acting takes so much energy.

Acting is real important to me. I love it, and it's something I care about.