Born with Teeth Quotes

“I'm scared,' I said, 'There doesn't seem to be any way out.'

'No,' Beth corrected me, 'there are in fact several ways out, but all of them are painful. You have to know your own tolerance for pain, what you can endure, what you know you can live with and what you can't live without.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“I laughed, disarmed. "Shopping isn't really my thing. Not when there are bookstores to be plundered and tombs to be explored.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“I think you’re wrong there. It feels selfish at the time, because the pain is excruciating, but there is no nobility in hanging on to something that is miserable and false. We have to fight for our happiness in life.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“You need to call on your best and strongest self.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“Picasso wasn’t in conflict, you can bet your bottom dollar on that. He said, Scram! I need to work, and his mistresses and their spawn ran for the hills. Dickens wasn’t in conflict. He had ten children and wrote as many novels in almost as many years, because it was both understood and appreciated that he was gifted, famous, and rich. The male artist has always been respected.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“I press my face to the window, and I think to myself, There will never be another day like this day. This day will end. Everything passes in front of me with alarming speed, and though I recognize the splendour of the trees and the radiance of the sun, I am detached. This startles and unsettles me.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“FROM WHENCE YOU SPRANG.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“The work did not let me down, and neither did the part. When Mulgrew suffered, Janeway picked her up. And when Janeway felt like giving up, Mulgrew slapped her into shape. I was put to good use in every way, and this saved me.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“She [my mother] tapped my hand lightly with her fingers and, looking out the window, said, "You know, I've missed having a mother. It's a gaping hole. I think having a mother is one of the great things in life--one of the only things that can save you. I'm always looking for my mother and, frankly, Kitten, it's becoming exhausting, so I thought I'd ask you if you would be my mother. You just have that way about you. You're not really what anyone would call a typical daughter, but I think you have exactly what it takes to be a mother. Don't you think it's a good idea?”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“Grief moves through the system much as love does. It seeks expression.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“It's hard to know what's in a person's heart when she never says good-bye.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“I wanted to teach them that rejection, and the sadness that attended it, were an integral part of loving something passionately and therefore nothing to be ashamed of.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“I developed a constitution that could only ever be described as able and hardy.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“Actresses. What a bunch of sad saps we are, I thought. Madly in love with the child. Madly in love with the craft. Trying desperately to forge an alliance between the two, and constantly failing. If I were a man, I said to myself, none of this would be in question.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“Grief moves through the system much as love does. It seeks expression. So I put my grief where it naturally belonged, in the company of an old and experienced wound. I gathered my feelings, shattered, scattered, and wild, and locked them in the same place where I kept my feelings about my daughter.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“Standing alone in the middle of the room, I looked at each of them, in turn, as I explained that we were lost in an uncharted part of the galaxy, that we would have to find a way to work together if we were to survive, that we must triumph over old rivalries and embrace new friendships, that we must face each unexpected challenge with courage and audacity and hope and that, above all, and despite seemingly insurmountable odds, I would find a way to get them home. Somehow, I promised them, someday, I would set a course… for home.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“It was curious to me then, as now, the power of the performer over an audience when, in fact, the gift itself springs from the writer’s pen.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“There is no nobility in hanging into something that is miserable and false.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“It is such a gloriously beautiful May morning, I put my hand to the window and hold it against the glass; I want to see what my hand looks like before it becomes another kind of hand. I press my face to the window, and I think to myself, There will never be another day like this day. This day will end.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“I often wondered if the pursuit of the illicit was not tacitly encouraged among those in charge, devoted, as they all were, to profit. I could have been carrying on with a psychopathic serial murderer, and no one would have blinked an eye as long as I knew my lines and hit my mark with efficiency and a modicum of verve.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“Oh, by the way, you should know that we can’t, after all, use Elizabeth as Janeway’s first name, there happens to be a living author with that name, so we’ve decided to call her Kathryn. We thought that would please you.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“There was only one, and it said, “Kate Mulgrew, this is Rick Berman, the executive producer of Star Trek: Voyager, and I simply wanted to say welcome aboard, Captain. I’ll see you on the bridge Monday morning.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“It is a wonderful thing to know and understand friendship. It is a gift, without question. I have been blessed with a handful of the most extraordinary friends, whose allegiance and devotion have, again and again in my life, lifted me up. Now, in this stiff room full of important people, I showed them Janeway’s capacity for friendship. I laughed with Tuvok, I teased him, and then suddenly turned and found myself utterly vulnerable in his presence, seeking his counsel, needing his guidance. In the end, I embraced him, and put my hand to his cheek.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“Many words made no sense to me; it was a particular kind of language, highly stylized, while at the same time much of the dialogue between officers seemed informal, even casual. What was at once evident was Captain Janeway’s love of science, her unusual friendship with the Vulcan Tuvok, her need for adventure, and her mettle. In the pilot script, her name was Elizabeth Janeway, and although I knew I had my work cut out for me, I felt an instant and natural affinity with this woman. I liked her style.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“It’s called Star Trek: Voyager. You would be playing the captain of a starship.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“They loved her because she was an independent spirit, unafraid to speak her mind, passionate, impetuous, and brave. Seldom lauded for her beauty, Mary Ryan had something else to offer, something women could grab ahold of and understand. She had a powerful sense of self, and this proved more magnetic and more relatable than any other single quality.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“The “banker’s way” meant that you were not fit for acting, not able to channel passion, not sensitive to the subtleties of human nature. In other words, you were a creature of the material world and therefore neither welcomed nor suited to this life, where money was regarded with disdain and personal sacrifice was the order of the day.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“I watched carefully as she lifted her baton in the air and began to write. Painstakingly, they were, these last words, and harrowing to witness. Incredulous, I realized what she had spelled out for me. Something that once upon a time had been a great joke between us, part of our shared love of the irreverent.
The cigarette, in invisible script, had written: YOU WILL BE WITH ME IN PARADISE.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“The first female captain in the history of the Star Trek franchise,”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth

“In my naïveté as a mother and my egocentricity as an actress, I honestly thought that seeing me on the screen would make my children proud.”
― Kate Mulgrew, Born with Teeth