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Mary Tyler Moore Quotes

Mary Tyler Moore was an American actress, known for her roles in the television sitcoms The Mary Tyler Moore Show , in which she starred as Mary Richards, a single woman working as a local news producer in Minneapolis, and The Dick Van Dyke Show , in which she played Laura Petrie, a former dancer turned Westchester homemaker, wife and mother. Her film work includes 1967's Thoroughly Modern Millie and 1980's Ordinary People, in which she played a role that was very different from the television characters she had portrayed, and for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

Due to her roles on both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show, in which her characters often broke from stereotypical images of women and pushed gender norms, Moore became a cultural icon and served as an inspiration for many younger actresses, professional women, and feminists. She was later active in charity work and various political causes, particularly the issues of animal rights, vegetarianism and diabetes. She was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes early in the run of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. She also suffered from alcoholism, which she wrote about in her first of two memoirs. She died from cardiopulmonary arrest due to pneumonia at the age of 80 on January 25, 2017.



✵ 29. December 1936 – 25. January 2017
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Mary Tyler Moore: 9   quotes 0   likes

Famous Mary Tyler Moore Quotes

“Pain nourishes courage. You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you.”

Mary Tyler Moore

As quoted in The Reader's Digest, Vol. 128 (1986), p. 137; later in Quotable Quotes (1997) by Editors of Reader's Digest

“Whatever it is, it’s OK because it’s what it is. Don’t be looking for perfection.”

Mary Tyler Moore

"Mary Tyler Moore: A Career Retrospective" by Cole Kazdinimaeyen, ABC News (31 March 2009) http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=7204628&page=1
Context: Whatever it is, it’s OK because it’s what it is. Don’t be looking for perfection. Don’t be short-tempered with yourself. And you’ll be a whole lot nicer to be around with everyone else.

“I knew at a very early age what I wanted to do. Some people refer to it as indulging in my instincts and artistic bent. I call it just showing off, which was what I did from about three years of age on.”

Mary Tyler Moore

"Mary Tyler Moore" Interview by Diane Werts at Archive of American Television (23 October 1997)

“Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.”

Mary Tyler Moore

“I'm not an actress who can create a character. I play me.”

Mary Tyler Moore

As quoted in TV Guide (1970) http://books.google.com/books?id=ZokxAQAAIAAJ&q=%22I'm+not+an+actress+who+can+create+a+character.+I+play+me.%22&dq=%22I'm+not+an+actress+who+can+create+a+character.+I+play+me.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vu6CUaY_1LTgA_DtgaAJ&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBA, also in Celebrity Register (1986) edited by Cleveland Amory and Earl Blackwell, p. 353

“My grandfather once said, having watched me one entire afternoon, prancing and leaping and cavorting, "this child will either end up on stage or in jail." Fortunately, I took the easy route.”

Mary Tyler Moore

"Mary Tyler Moore" Interview by Diane Werts at Archive of American Television (23 October 1997) http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/mary-tyler-moore

“It may take a while, but there will probably come a time when we look back and say, "Good Lord, do you believe that in the twentieth century and early part of the twenty-first, people were still eating animals?"”

Mary Tyler Moore

As quoted in The Vegetarian Solution: Your Answer to Cancer, Heart Disease, Global Warming and More (2007) by Stewart D. Rose, p. 114

“My proximity to the sheep, cattle, and geese who are now my neighbors in the country is what has finally turned me into a vegetarian. I talk to these animals when I walk. Sometimes I am lucky enough to make physical contact with them, and as I look into their eyes I see not only the innocence, but also the clear fact that those eyes are no less complicated in their structure than my own. Don't we now have enough tasty things to eat from the garden and all the delicious ways to prepare them?”

Mary Tyler Moore

After All https://books.google.it/books?id=siBPpd0BdeQC (New York: Putnam, 1995), p. 27

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