Meryl Streep

“I didn't have any confidence in my beauty when I was young. I felt like a character actress, and I still do.”

“The more you are in this business, the more humbled by it you become.”

“Show business has been really, really good to me because I can work and take a lot of time off, and I'm extremely undisciplined person.”

“All an actor has is their blind faith that they are who they say they are today, in any scene.”

“My family really does come first. It always did and always will.”

“There's no road map on how to raise a family: it's always an enormous negotiation.”

“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.”

“It's bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children's health than the pediatrician.”

“I couldn't care less about fashion. If I had taken any clothes home, they would have remained in my closet for the rest of their existence.”

“Having been let out of the barn once, I know I wouldn't be happy if I were home all the time.”

“I believe in imagination. I did Kramer vs. Kramer before I had children. But the mother I would be was already inside me.”

“Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials.”

“Expensive clothes are a waste of money.”

“I have a very busy life, and not many people who have a career and four kids go out a lot to the movies.”

“The reason I chose the movies that I did was based on where they were being filmed.”

“I don't know why I don't watch a lot of movies I can barely keep up with the things my friends are in. There isn't enough time in life.”

“The interesting thing about being a mother is that everyone wants pets, but no one but me cleans the kitty litter.”

“Integrate what you believe in every single area of your life. Take your heart to work and ask the most and best of everybody else, too.”