Michael Chekhov > Quotes

“All you experience in the course of your life, all you observe and think, all that makes you happy or unhappy, all your regrets or satisfactions, all your love or hate, all you long for or avoid, all your achievements and failures, all you brought with you into this life at birth – your temperament, abilities, inclinations, whether they remain unfulfilled, underdeveloped or overdeveloped – all are part of the region of your so-called subconscious depth. There, being forgotten by you, or never known to you, they undergo the process of being purified of all egotism. They become feelings per se. Thus purged and transformed, they become part of the material from which your individuality creates the psychology, the illusory “soul” of the character.”
― Michael Chekhov, To the Actor: On the Technique of Acting