Laura Benanti's Quotes

Do I want to write a musical? No. I like to do musicals.

I actually enjoy Britney Spears. Not as a singer but as a performer. I just enjoy watching her. I think, 'You are so brave.'

I don't think theater is dying, and musicals are a great American art form. We've got apple pie, jazz and musical theater.

I was a little girl who grew up idolizing musical-theatre stars.

I was always a little adult. Even as a little kid, I just couldn't understand why I was surrounded by all these kids. I took things very seriously.

I was not a fan of the Bush administration, as I think many of us were not.

Musical theatre is my first love.

My parents were in 'Brigadoon' on Broadway when I was a couple of years old.

Well, I'm grateful for all the experiences that I've had.

I do think musical-theater actors can get a bad rap, and I see why. There is a certain slickness - there's nothing better than an amazing musical, but an okay musical can be one of the worst times you've ever had.

I think that every therapist that I know, including my dad and my sister, have their own issues. But that empathy is what makes them good at their job.

I try to give the appearance that I have it all together and that I know what I'm talking about, but at the end of the day, I think I might be full of crap.

My mother was an actress and my voice teacher, an incredible voice teacher. My biological father is an actor, and my stepfather, who raised me along with my mother, is a psychotherapist. I was always supported in creative ventures.

Of course I wanted an agent from the time I was like 5, but my mother was like, 'No, you're going to be normal, you're going to go to school, you're going to get good grades, you're going to play soccer, and if you do well, if you keep your grades up, you can do one community-theater show a year.'

There's a lot of pressure on Broadway. There's this feeling that the show has to be a commercial success and the producers have to make their money back and Tonys and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I fell in love with Rwanda the moment I saw those verdant, rolling hills rise up beneath the wings of the plane as we descended toward Kigali airport.

I was brought up in the shadow of the Holocaust. My mother lost most of her family, and I didn't realize how much the guilt of survivorship weighed on her until I was an adult.

I'm a triathlete. Running is when I do my best living and my best thinking. I love the discipline, pushing yourself to suffer as much as you can, because it leads to a form of redemption.

Love truly does have the power to transcend evil. It can get us through the most unspeakable of events and give us the strength to keep on putting one foot in front of the other.

When readers close the covers on 'Running the Rift,' I want them to understand that it is not a genocide novel but rather a story of hope and rebirth.