Maggie Gyllenhaal Quotes

"Motherhood brings you to your knees in a way that doesn't leave room for you to judge others. It makes you see that there's no ideal - a constant struggle, constantly compromising, but ultimate love."

"Who can I trust? You have to invest in somebody and chances are you're probably going to invest in somebody who's going to deceive you. I've been conned a couple of times, but now I'm a little more savvy."

"I don't see that many movies lately that are actually about something, that are trying to challenge something about the way that people interact."

"I liked that idea. Someone who's trying to perform herself and not succeeding."

"A play is much easier to maintain your personal life with because if you're rehearsing, you're working like from 11 to 6 or 11 to 5 and you get to have your whole morning and your whole evening. When you're doing the play, you have all day."

"Simple black-and-white thinking or action is always going to be problematic."

"A big part of being an actress specifically is feeling entitled to your artistic opinion, feeling that it means something, and being able to stand by it."

"Having an education is invaluable."

"I feel so gratified about having finished college. I learned how to articulate myself. It gave me confidence more than anything. And also the ability to analyze the text."

"I feel there is no shortage of real interesting women's roles. But I found them and did all of them just now."

"I made a movie where I played a girl that just got out of prison and we shot it very very quickly but very intensely-that took me a long time to get over."

"I studied English literature; I took 2 independent religion classes, but I wasn't a religion major really."

"I think Secretary's funny, it is about sex, and there's a lot of sex in it, sex is the key, but you're talking about a lot of other complicated things."

"I think sex is very interesting for most people, but I'm interested in sex as a way of communication, I'm not that interested in the fantasy version of a sex scene."

"I want to have some effect on the way the world works in whatever way I can, and I also want to have the power to help get the movies that I think are important made."

"I'm still trying to figure out what the right line is between myself and the people I play. Sometimes I go too far one way or too far the other."

"Most people are interested in seeing 27-year-old women who are in movies somehow connected to sex. It's interesting to everyone. Especially little movies that are having trouble getting made, there's always sex."

"On a film, I was always acting. I was either changing my clothes really quickly and wiping off the lipstick and putting on the other lipstick and then working constantly, constantly."

"Ten years ago, it was really difficult for a young actress to walk onto a set and disagree with the director and having that be OK and have a conversation about it and everyone be cool with it."

"There was something to me that was really compelling about that woman, already knowing she couldn't get pregnant. When I made that movie I was maybe 24, and to be 24 and already know you can't get pregnant, that was really interesting to me."

"We were lounging around in this beautiful house in LA, and I'm coming from NY, so sometimes when we weren't working I would just sit on those folding chairs."

"You have a right to your opinion about the work that you're doing. An artist is as equally important as the director. If you believe that, you can work in any circumstances."

"You're not going to do good work if you're not choosing something because it inspires you."

"I don't think I'm a brilliant writer, but I'm a good writer, and it's just so empowering to get involved."

"So many people are willing to sleepwalk through things and fall into the not human, not interesting choice. To make the really interesting choice, you have to fight."

"I'm not interested in showing the wish of what it looks like to be human. I'm interested in showing what it actually looks like."

"I get magnetically pulled towards a project because there's something in it that offers me the opportunity to explore the edge of my understanding about myself."

"I think it's worth putting energy into affirmative action in terms of having diversity in positions of power because the door was shut for so long."

"There are things that are really disappointing about being an actress in Hollywood that surprise me all the time."

"I like clothes. And I think it's OK to think about clothes just so long as you also think about other things. I'm not interested in clothes to the point where they'll push other things out of my mind; I just see them as a way of expressing yourself, and a pleasure, really."