Audra McDonald Quotes

On this page you can find the TOP of Audra McDonald's best quotes! We hope you will find some sayings from Actress Audra McDonald's in our collection, which will inspire you to new achievements! There are currently 31 quotes on this page collected since July 3, 1970! Share our collection of quotes with your friends on social media so that they can find something to inspire them!
All quotes by Audra McDonald: Art Creativity Emotions Performing more...
  • It's easy to spend - especially in this day and age - to spend your time not being in the present. It's very easy to be way ahead. What's tomorrow and the day after that?

    Age   Way   Tomorrow  
    Source: www.achievement.org
  • A doctor can be a doctor today and they will be a doctor tomorrow. But an actor, well you're not working at anything right now, whereas the doctor is going to have their job tomorrow, for the most part. So there's the insecurity of that, and you have to go where the work is.

  • I played Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music and everybody's like, "Well she wouldn't have been this and that, she shouldn't be playing it." Well I'm going to do it and I did it. I've been warned my entire life and I've persisted and that's what I hope my children will do as well.

    Source: www.ebony.com
  • I think it comes down to the type of personality that the performing arts seem to attract. And that's outgoing, very sensitive - sometimes incredibly insecure - people, that for some reason need a lot of validation. They have a lot that they have to get out, and they choose one of the hardest professions in the world in which to exist, being as sensitive as you need to be.

    Art   Insecure   Thinking  
  • I think for a lot of people that are in performing arts, it's easy to fall into the trap of starting to confuse what's real life and what's not, because to your body it's all real.

    Art   Real   Fall  
    Source: www.achievement.org
  • Some sort of creativity is within everybody; I think that's just a part of the human spirit. I think there's no human being on earth who is not creative in some way, because I think it's just a part of our genetic makeup.

    Source: www.achievement.org
  • ...I tried to kill myself. It was a feeble attempt, but I did. And I got put in a mental hospital for a month, and I got myself straight and worked on my mental health...it's nothing that I hide. It's nothing to be proud of or to be ashamed of. It's part of my life, you know? And I'm still here!

    Wisdom   Health   Reality  
  • I'm still an artist who's searching, trying to evolve, an artist who - nine times out of ten - is dissatisfied with her work, and beats herself, and goes out there and tries again and again, and falls on her face and looks for new challenges.

    Source: www.achievement.org
  • I consider myself to be a feminist. My hope and goal is that I'm going to raise two very strong independent women that won't need anybody, unless they chose that. I want them to be mistresses of their own destiny. But I don't judge people on the other end of that spectrum either.

    Source: www.ebony.com
  • Rise above the way society is going to see you and society is going to see you at the absolutely bottom of the totem pole because not only are you female, you are Black. Never believe it and never give into that, that that's where you live or that's who you are.

    Believe   Giving   Black  
    Source: www.ebony.com
  • I want to thank all the shoulders of the strong and brave and courageous women that I am standing on.

    Strong   Brave   Want  
    "Billie Holiday: A Singer Beyond Our Understanding". www.npr.org. April 7, 2015.
  • In the performing arts you have to have thick, thick, thick skin, because of all the rejection you face on a daily basis, and the fact that work never lasts for very long. But you need thin, thin, thin skin in order to access all of your emotions and your creativity so that you can express it. You can't be dead inside. Otherwise you've got nothing to give. So it's a paradox, that we have to exist in both planes in order to do what we do.

    Art   Creativity   Order  
    Source: www.achievement.org
  • I think in the end there is one ultimate goal with all my careers, and that is, as a performing artist, you want to explore the deepest, most truthful way to express a point of view, or whatever the character is thinking, or whatever emotion you're trying to convey. I think with the different media it's just about what muscles you use to express that.

  • I was a little girl with a pot belly and Afro puffs, hyperactive and overdramatic, and I found the theater and I found my home.

    Home   Theater   Found  
    "Audra McDonald Goes Back Home With New Album". "Tell Me More" with Michel Martin, www.npr.org. May 30, 2013.
  • I'm addicted to those moments when you're on stage and the audience is so quiet you could hear a pin drop and you realize that you're in communion. That's an incredible experience. That's a cosmic experience, as far as I'm concerned, without getting way out there.

    Way   Quiet   Realizing  
  • I've had to play characters who I absolutely disagree with, as far as their politics, as far as their religion, and their stance on certain social issues, I completely disagree with them. But I have to go in and find who they are and get to their core, into their truth, and have absolute faith and believe in that, in order to portray it. So you have to walk in a lot of different shoes, in that you can't help but have your mind open as a result of that.

    Source: www.achievement.org
  • I think a part of evolution is the desire to know yourself, and know the world you live in, and discover everything you can about the world you live in. That world can be the microcosm of your own emotions, or a society, or the cosmos. There's this constant desire for knowledge.

    Source: www.achievement.org
  • The authentic Gullah dialect is actually very clipped, and so it would sound almost Jamaican and be very odd to an American audience's ears. It's not the typical Southern dialect that we're used to.

    "Audra McDonald: Shaping 'Bess' On Broadway". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. May 15, 2012.
  • You feel the communion of the collective consciousness in that moment when you're on stage doing something and the audience is absolutely with you. And the audience becomes a collective entity as well. They come in from separate places and socio-economic backgrounds, and places across the world and days that they've had, and then they come together and they become one collective thing, and experience something in a collective way.

    Together   Way   World  
    Source: www.achievement.org
  • I find that I'm just drawn to anything that's going to challenge me as an actress. So any time I get a chance to do a little comedy, that's also a nice change for me. Most of the time people think of me as a dramatic actress and singer. And there's a challenge there because comedy is hard. What do they say? "Dying is easy; comedy is hard."

    Nice   Thinking   People  
    Source: www.elle.com
  • I'm taking opportunities as they come; I really am. Not to get too sort of mystical, but I believe in fate. I believe when roles are presented to me in my life they're for a very specific reason, something for me to learn. And it's coming at the right time.

    Source: www.elle.com
  • The only thing I've ever wanted to do in my entire life is to be on Broadway.

    "The 58th Annual Tony Awards". TV Special, www.imdb.com. June 06, 2004.
  • For me, I am constantly forcing myself to evolve, because, I think, to stagnate creatively - there's a certain death that happens with that. Because if you're not moving forward and you're not evolving, you're devolving, and I don't want to go backwards. I want to be better at what I do tomorrow than I am today. I don't want to be worse.

    Moving   Thinking   Want  
    Source: www.achievement.org
  • Every human being has a dream. I think what's special about the American Dream is that it implies, given everything that's happened with the history of America, that there is the opportunity to make your dream come true. So I think America signifies opportunity.

    Source: www.achievement.org
  • Theater doesn't bring money in general. That's not why you do it. If you go into theater for money then you've really gone into the wrong business.

    Gone   Theater   Ifs  
  • I think it's absolutely essential to encourage creativity. I think we come in as these wide-eyed sponges, ready to create and absorb and evolve, and I think more often than not we are squashed, the older we get.

    Source: www.achievement.org
  • I guess what I know now that I definitely didn't know as a child, is that being truest to yourself is the greatest weapon in the war to achieve. That sounds really negative, but in conquering or achieving something. I think, as a child, I thought I had to be somebody else.

    Children   War   Thinking  
  • Pedigree matters: if you break your shoulder trying to open a door, it's much harder to play the game once you get in the room.

    Doors   Games   Play  
  • ...and if you hear something you know, please sing along. No wait - I take that back - you can't sing along - this is about me now - this is my show.

    Waiting   Shows   Please  
  • Whatever is the scariest is almost always what I end up choosing.

    Ends  
    Source: www.achievement.org
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  • We hope you have found the saying you were looking for in our collection! At the moment, we have collected 31 quotes from the Actress Audra McDonald, starting from July 3, 1970! We periodically replenish our collection so that visitors of our website can always find inspirational quotes by authors from all over the world! Come back to us again!
    Audra McDonald quotes about: Art Creativity Emotions Performing