Mara Wilson Quotes

I don't like kids that are pushed into things by stage mums, but when I can see they are having a good time, they're excited and enjoying the process, then I think it's wrong to discriminate.

It's sad that my daughter will get attention because of her daddy. I'm already watching her run around the house and pick up microphones. It's scary.

At times, I feel sorry for kids who have succumbed in some kind of way to being a child actor.

When you come to L.A. as a kid with your mom, you're lured into doing things that you think are cool and fun and a good idea, but they're cheesy and awful. And recording a pop single was one of them.

I think it's very hard for coaches to work with me. They'll no doubt have a good CV afterwards, but at the same time they're under a lot of pressure.

Not surprisingly, my parents' generation did everything they could to make life easier for their own children. Was that good for us? I wonder. It certainly didn't do us any good from a cultural point of view. I'm struck by how few boomers have embraced adult culture in middle age.

I didn't want to raise my kids in this weird, sycophantic society. If you have celebrity parents, it's not a good recipe for the kids, or anyone at any age.

That word 'prodigy' has such a derogatory implication. It is used to describe people who are forced to play a lot of concerts very early, people whose audience comes because of their youth, people who are exploited. None of the above really applied to me.

There's a pressure regardless of that to do a good show.

Time is the wisest counselor of all.

There never is a good time for tough decisions. There will always be an election or something else. You have to pick courage and do it. Governance is about taking tough, even unpopular, decisions.

I was always used to being centre stage - something that had its good and bad points.

It's unrealistic to expect the person you go to for sage advice also to be the person you go out and have a good time with. And it's unlikely that he or she will be the same person who's pushing you and motivating you to do more every day, like a coach or manager does.

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.

You don't need a foreign policy expert to tell you empty threats and hollow promises don't work. Ask any parent of a rebellious teenager. If you don't make good on the threats, you're asking for worse behavior next time.

You don't want to be hard to look at. Plain very good, hard to look at bad. The plain shall inherit the earth; time is our friend.

I'm part of the party, getting the crowd fired up, singing songs, pouring drinks, whatever it takes to get them to have a good time. When I walk into the meet-and-greet, someone's always going to have a story, a sad story or a happy story.

Time can be very good or very cruel to films.

People can get certain good things out of fame, but until it killed a princess nobody ever talked about how bad it can be.

My mom was always keen I stayed in school and got good grades, and she was always keen for me to do medicine. I used to go to drama classes when I was younger, and she would always take me. But when I got to an age when I decided it was what I wanted to do, when she accepted it, she had actually been the most supportive person ever.

I find that with any good run on a show with good writers, they put something on paper, and you put something back on film, and that affects what they put on the paper the next time.

We can no longer waste time and money. Every day, more than 2,000 girls in America, age 15-19, give birth - in the wealthiest, most educated nation in the world! Neither you nor I should accept this statistic.

I started playing the violin at age 3, and I was very fortunate because there were people who heard me who were influential in getting me auditions. By the time I was 7, I was playing concerts - it was just ridiculous.

There is undoubtedly a lot of pressure that comes with recognition, which can be a good thing and bad thing all at the same time. But if you stay focused and don't lose sight of what you're doing and who you are, you can rise above it.

I'll tell you something: my dad was a nuclear engineer and he was really bright, and I've always said that because of negotiating at such a young age with my dad, it was really such a gift because I could then negotiate with very difficult personalities - and not end up being the scapegoat. I learned to really pick and choose my battles.