Debra Messing Quotes

You just hope that you will get the opportunity to do what you love and pay your bills, and that is being a success as an actor.

It's always been really important for me to try to maintain a balanced life, professional and personal, and this was absolutely something that my husband and I had hoped for.

I think for me it's just a matter of staying keyed into my lifelong friends from New York and family. And, you know, I'm pretty solitary. I'm a homebody. So I don't get out much to get into trouble

When you're passionate about something, you want it to be all it can be.

But in the endgame of life, I fundamentally believe the key to happiness is letting go of that idea of perfection.

It's the job that I take most seriously in my life and I think it's the hardest job.

I was always singing and dancing for my mother when I wasn't glued to the television watching I Love Lucy or the Carol Burnett Show.

I come from the New York theatre world, and I have a lot of gay male friends, so this friendship of Will and Grace's isn't such a stretch.

I'm a little commitment phobic, in that I've always been someone who likes to take things one year at a time because as we all know, a year can change everything in your life.

And that's just a terrifying and terrifying thing.

And all the photographers and, you know, it's a different, unnatural setting that no one can prepare you for. But, you know, I just try and have as much fun as I can for as long as it lasts because I know it's a privilege.

As scary as change can be and as much as I might resist it, there's always some unkown gift that comes out of it. I really never thought you could begin again. You can.

Do what makes you happy. And when it doesn't make you happy anymore, make a change -- without fear.

Oh Young Frankenstein - that's right, Body Heat, Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

I mean, you know, it - they just keep going on and on and on - Mission: Impossible. And, you know, I think that the writers are having so much fun now with them that, you know, half the time, you know, people are just sitting around saying - trying to think of what's a great movie to copy.

So my son is very curious, which is fantastic.

He loves school. So I don't have to encourage him too much, but I love to do it because I know it's meaningful and words are powerful.

I just think of couture clothing as wearable art.

So from - to that extent I, you know, I love having the opportunity to just even be able to touch and look at, you know, these pieces of design. In terms of, you know, is it stressful and does it take a lot of time. It's mostly stressful because you're there because you're nominated.

But I've become completely obsessed with taking photos on my iPhone. I have like 400 apps.

I'm naturally lean and I'm constantly walking.

And because I have a four-year-old son I have become a great baseball pitcher.

And, you know, juggler.

And so out of the blue the call did come and said, you know, "Would you be - would you consider turning this [The Starter Wife] now into a series?" And so obviously that was a shock. And all the conversations began. And, you know, and now we're here. Now we're finishing up our last episode right now.

Oh it's fantastic because I get to whip people like David into shape and tell them to go get me coffee. Kidding - okay.

Ask everyone whether they're an actor or a doctor or a teacher or whatever is entitled to his or her opinion. But unfortunately, because actors are in the public eye, whether we want it or not, sometimes our opinions carry more weight or influence than they deserve.

You know, making fun of the excessiveness and the priorities that are most stilted out here which does make it difficult to have a very sort of grounded, normal life because there's really nothing normal about Hollywood.

We just, you know, we're just sort of doing it like Bewitched, because we just think that the character of Kenny is so specific and so outrageous and so fun. And by far the hardest character to cast out of everybody to find someone who was capable of, you know, doing, you know, the comedy and just with the broadness and to be also just a really brilliant actor, you know, to do naturalism.

My parents always made education and school the number one priority.

They believed that an education is the best gift you can give to your child.

There's always - somehow a red carpet everywhere. And I think that, you know, it's a fantasyland out here, you know. It's beautiful. It's sunny all the time. You know, there are beautiful people everywhere because you're not allowed to cross the Los Angeles city lines unless you're beautiful or skinny - joking kind of.

I love to do glamorous things, like wear Valentino.

I'm just eating really, really clean healthy foods.

Everything has to do with murder.

I pay parking tickets. You know, you can try to give 50%, but then they charge you all those penalties! Seriously, I have gotten many, many, many tickets in my life.

I don't think it's possible to have a wedding without it being stressful!

You can't control chemistry. You can't control, you know, just similar aesthetics creatively. And, you know, David and I didn't know each other prior to this. And we get along famously. So it's - I feel very lucky.

I love London. I love England. We were out in the countryside and I had the time of my life.

It was hard to find somebody who could juggle both. And so we were really just focusing more on that. We figured, okay, if we're lucky enough to find somebody then, you know, the audience will get over it in one episode.

I don't exercise - that's something I struggle with.

I had already just sort of decided okay it's just never going to happen. So when they - when my name was called it was an out of body, you know, just glorious moment. It shouldn't mean that much. But, you know, I'd be lying if I didn't say that it meant the world to know that my peers appreciated what I was doing.

It's essentially encouraging parents, teachers, and caretakers to remind children how special they are on a regular basis.

Yes, women, and men, have to be open to love, because if we're not open then there's no way for us to find happiness. But you can be open to it and still have no control over when it's going to happen.

Okay well - no that is a very real thing seven-year-olds asking for BlackBerrys and cell phones and things like that. And that's one of the things I love most about the show [The Starter Wife] is the social satire.

I think Hollywood has always, you know, there's always been glamour associated to it. And especially in the last ten years there has been a growing sort of obsession with celebrity life and celebrity culture.

My biggest fantasy love affair was with Dustin Hoffman. It's so bizarre. Also Anthony Hopkins.

I am a fan of all of the same shows that David just listed. And then I also have a weird obsession with Court TV, which is now truTV - I don't know if you know that. Yeah they changed names. I don't know why they did that but they did. It was a little disconcerting to me at first. But I've gotten over it.

Repeat after me: 'I am doing the best that I can.' That's the mantra I keep trying to tell myself, 'I'm doing the best I can.'

I love every aspect of the show. I've been very involved. It was important for me to be very involved in, you know, all of the creative elements. And so, you know, it - David, you know, being brought onto the show, you know, that - I always just wanted to make sure that we maintained the sophistication and intelligence of (the) - and the comedy that we were able to establish in the mini-series.

I think that there's etiquette for every means of communication. People are very judgmental and have strict rules. I don't think you should end a relationship with a Post-it note. I know some people who get offended when an e-mail is sent as a "thank you" note instead of a hand-written card.

I'm fascinated by diamonds. When I put diamonds on, my hands start to shake.

You know, unfortunately divorce it happens in Kansas as much as it does in Hollywood. And, you know, women having to start over at 40, you know, for the first time in their life having to find a career and being a single parent and having to date. You know, all of those things happen everywhere in the world. It's not just Los Angeles. So I would defend the fact that there are, you know, there are other reasons to watch than just to get a laugh.

And often when things turn to TV series there are so many different people with different agendas that things can morph. And so, you know, that was why having the executive producer title was important to me because even if I was the star and I had a concern, you know, that concern would only go so far. But having the title of executive producer actually makes them have to actually listen to me complain.

I would absolutely be a litigator. I watch Court TV every day.

It [going from mini-series to series] was never even discussed because it [The Starter Wife] was, you know, an adaptation of a novel. And we - the mini-series encompassed the whole novel. And so it was always going to be a finite sort of event. And then I imagine when people started to really respond to the show and then we got ten Emmy nominations, USA sort of said, "Oh, I think maybe we have something here."

Creatively I just enjoy challenging myself in different genres.