Sarah Paulson quotes: discussing her work ethic, why she hasn’t had kids, when it’s okay to be selfish, and more.
“Anything is possible, and the truth is any human being at any given moment, no matter how good they are—not only at their job, but also as a person—they’re capable of anything, and it’s not always a conscious thing.”
“To not have any hope is where things start to get really bleak. Things are possible. The impossible can be possible.”
“Like everything in life, it’s the way you come up, the way you develop.”
“Sometimes you find yourself doing things and you fall into those things. So I do think part of the magic of a creative endeavor, and the thing that you learn and take with you and put it into practice while you are doing it is that you can’t really know what you are capable of sometimes until you are in the throes of doing it!”
“Feel the fear and the pain, let it all in, and then let it all go.”
“Going to the next level means that you’re at the bottom of the next rung.”
“Acting is doing. The more you do, the more you learn. Work begets work.”
“There are rules, and when certain things happen, there are certain consequences.”
“We’re constantly, as human beings, trying to understand why we do what we do and how we got to wherever we find ourselves today. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to look back.”
“Looking back is a way to sharpen the focus on the things you want to change in your life. I think there’s something about nostalgia that really puts a fine point on the here-and-now, and that can be incredibly fascinating and interesting and engaging for the mind.”
“I think sometimes when you can feel the velocity of change, like nowadays, you really need a seat belt. It’s almost like having a growth spurt that you can feel, like a 16-year-old who woke up one day and grew four inches literally overnight. That can be a painful thing sometimes.”
“I feel like the more time I spend trying to figure out what motivates me to do something, even if it’s something I regret or something that I question about myself, if I can understand why and how I’ve done it, then I am likely to not repeat the pattern. It’s bubbling underneath the surface.”
“Any time you can do a deep dive inward is only going to help the way you deal with other people in any work environment, but certainly in a creative environment.”
“You were wrong. There is something more dangerous in this world than a humiliated man: a nasty woman.”
“I personally think it would be a very liberating thing for women to allow themselves to understand that having it all incorporates sacrifice. It does mean that you can’t be everywhere all the time. It does mean that your friends are not going to get all of you.”
“I just don’t feel that we’ve traveled very far in the realm of social equality. There just seems to be a little bit of unrest. And sometimes I think that happens when you really feel like something’s about to change. Right before the moment of lift off, sometimes things feel a little bit unhinged, and that’s what it feels like to me right now, both as a woman and just as a human on the planet—as an American woman in America. I feel like we’re on the precipice of change. I feel a little nervous.”
“We all in life have so many responsibilities to ourselves, to other people, that we rarely get to explore a very selfish side of ourselves in doing what we want, when we want, how we want, without answering to or being responsible for anyone else.”
“Sometimes I think it’s a good thing to not try to understand every gift you’re given.”
“At times it was a painful existence in which structure and security felt like alien concepts. My mom worked late, and I was at home a lot by myself. It was good for my imagination—and bad for it, too.”
“Things weren’t always easy, and it wasn’t always the easiest of relationships. But there was no way for me to not look at my mother and think, ‘Oh, I can do anything.’ Because look at her, she’s falling and getting back up and succeeding and failing.”
“I’ve always known what I wanted out of my professional life, and I didn’t want to turn around and go, ‘If I had only made the choice to just dedicate this time in my life to me.’ It’s selfish, but I think the word selfish gets a bad rap.”
“I’ve always really made my living in television. Television has always been so good to me.”
“The joy is always in the work.”
“My great love is the stage because I do feel like it’s the place where, if you’re lucky and everything is firing in the right way, you have the greatest shot at being successful. I don’t mean by getting great reviews, but I mean by finding the core of the person that you’re playing.”
“It’s such a gift, working with people that I admire.”
“My work life is as important to me as anything could be. I’ve dedicated a lot of time and energy and years to it. That is my reality.”
“I have friends say, ‘Don’t you want to have a little you?’ The jury’s still out on that for me. I don’t have a definitive answer, but I do know that I can look back on some of the things I’ve worked on and some of the things that have literally come out of my imagination and be just as proud of it as if I had created a person. I feel like that shouldn’t be of any less value. It can’t be because it’s what my life is, and I don’t want to make it smaller or more palatable just because society tells you to. If you can get comfortable with sacrifice, then you are having it all.”
“That is my reality. It’s that important to nurture and foster my own creativity. There are plenty of birthday parties I haven’t been able to go to, weddings I haven’t been able to go to because I’ve been working. Those are things that have not been easy to give up, but at the same time, it is my reality. It’s my responsibility.”
“My choices in life have been unconventional, and that’s my business. But I do want to live responsibly and truthfully without hiding. It’s complicated, because there is a lot of hate in this world, and a lot of good can come from quote-unquote normalizing something for people who don’t see it as normal.”
“I learned, having played Marcia Clark, what the value of that is in your life because it can affect everything, every choice you make, the way you deal with a stranger on the street, or your best friend or lover. It’s a powerful thing to know yourself and to have the commitment and the courage to let that be your guide.”
“I love the idea of people walking away with the idea of hope and possibility.”
“I will do plays as long as they’re interested in having me do them. It’s the biggest opportunity to learn the most about how to act. Something I discover every time I’m doing one is how little I know about acting—how important the art of listening is, and how important it is to listen with your entire body. You can tell so much of a story with stillness.”
“I’ve got a window. Right now it’s cracked ‘this big’ and I’m trying to keep it open with both hands, as wide as possible, for as long as possible.”
“I find joy in my job, as much as I can. Some of the work I’m most well known for is quite dark and quite centered in emotion. And I would love to be able to do that work, and enjoy it, at the same time.”
“I have to keep working the way I always have, leaving my ego at home and trying to just think about what is true.”
“I run from bees. I don’t like planes. But with work, it’s like… give it to me!”
