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I Always Feel That There Are Two Choices For Women. Either Be Totally Confident About Your Non-size-zero Body And Say, 'i Love What I Look Like And This Is Who I Am,' Or Be The Person Who Is Obsessed With Diet And Exercise And Keeping Toned. What Feels More Realistic To Me Is That Some Days I Wake Up And Think I Love How I Look. On Other Days I Say, 'if I Had Real Self-control, I Would Be 10 Pounds Lighter.' That Contradiction Is, To Me, What Being A Girl Actually Feels Like.

-Lena Dunham

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I Always Feel That

Lena Dunham

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I Always Feel That There Are Two Choices For Women. Either Be Totally Confident About Your Non-size-zero Body And Say, 'i Love What I Look Like And This Is Who I Am,' Or Be The Person Who Is Obsessed With Diet And Exercise And Keeping Toned. What Feels More Realistic To Me Is That Some Days I Wake Up And Think I Love How I Look. On Other Days I Say, 'if I Had Real Self-control, I Would Be 10 Pounds Lighter.' That Contradiction Is, To Me, What Being A Girl Actually Feels Like.

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I Can Never Be Who I Was. I Can Simply Watch Her With Sympathy, Understanding, And Some Measure Of Awe. There She Goes, Backpack On, Headed For The Subway Or The Airport. She Did Her Best With Her Eyeliner. She Learned A New Word She Wants To Try Out On You. She Is Ambling Along. She Is Looking For It.

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On Girls I Like Being A Mouthpiece For The Issues I Think Young Females Face Today. It’s Always Shocking When People Question Whether It’s A Feminist Show. How Could A Show About Women Exploring Women Not Be? Feminism Isn’t A Dirty Word. It’s Not Like We’re A Deranged Group Who Think Women Should Take Over The Planet, Raise Our Young On Our Own And Eliminate Men From The Picture. Feminism Is About Women Having All The Rights That Men Have.

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I'm Really Lucky Because I Surround Myself Onset With People Who I Really Trust To Give Me Feedback, So I'm Directing Myself.

I Love Directing Scenes That I'm Not In Because Suddenly I Really Feel Like A Filmmaker Which Is A Different Thing.

It Would Probably Be Too Easy A Cop Out To Say That Just Republican Males Hate Me. Though There's A Large Swath Of Them, For Sure.

But I Want To Tell My Stories, More Than That, I Have To In Order To Stay Sane.

I Always Imagined That Having A Baby Is Something That I'm Going To Keep In A Private Place, But Maybe My Curse Is That All I'm Going To Want To Do Is Tell Everybody About What My Birth Process Was Like And What My Children's Nightmares Are.

I Write At All Different Times. I Write In My Bed, I Write At The Table. I Need To Get It Together. I'm Working On A Book And Working, And Just Jam It In Whenever It Makes Sense.

I Think What People Really Hate Is To Be Caught By Surprise By Criticism.

For Straight, Hetero People It's Very Easy To Unintentionally Say Something That Might Not Honor People's Identities Fully, And Grace Dunham Is A Really Amazing Educational Resource.

Survivors Are So Often Re-victimized By A System That Demands They Prove Their Purity And Innocence.

Purity And Innocence

I've Always Loved My Own Little Office Spaces No Matter What They Were Like. It's The Virginia Woolf, Room Of One's Own Concept, It's Really Important.

It's Really Hard To Grow With Another Person.

Everyone Needs Something From Me.

There’s Always An Article Coming Out, Saying, ‘the New Thing Is Funny Women!’

I Thought About ["summer Sisters" ] So Often As I Was Writing About These Female Characters Who Love Each Other And Hated Each Other And Were Sort Of In Love With Each Other.

I Think Of My Body As A Tool To Do The Stuff I Need To Do, But Not The Be All End All Of My Existence.

I Just Don't Want To Be Around People Who Don't Hate Everything In Their Life Right Now.

It's Not Brave To Do Something That Doesn't Scare You.

I Think We All Feel That Way When We're Young We Don't Think Teachers Have Lives. We Don't Think Therapists Have Lives. We Don't Think Doctors Have Lives.

It's Almost Like When You're Young, Your Friends Take On The Romance Role, And Then Guys Take On The Role Of Your Friends Later.

I Feel Lucky In That The Same Way I've Surrounded Myself With People I'm Creatively Comfortable With, I've Surrounded Myself With People Who Are Accepting Of The Way That I Look.

I'm Really Lucky Because My Sister Is A Real Activist Soul And Also Hyper-intellectualized In This Way That's Really Allowed Me To Wrap My Mind Around Some Of The Bigger Intellectual Concepts And Really Understand The Language Around Identity In The Gender Nonconforming Community.

My Parents Were Open About Sex. And My Dad Makes Paintings That Have A Sexual Component And It Still Scares Me.

The Only Time I Felt Like A Weird Exploiter - Even Though I Knew I Wasn't One - Was When I Was Writing A Sex Scene Between Me And My Adorable Co-star [adam Driver] In Which He Had To Tell Me How Much He Loved My Potbelly. It Seemed Like A Weird Wish-fulfillment Thing, Where I'm Directing My Own Fantasy.

I Think That People In The Phase Between Being Someone's Kid And Being Someone's Parent Have Always Been Uniquely Narcissistic, But That Social Media And Twitter And Livejournal Make It Really Easy To Navel-gaze In A Way That You've Never Been Able To Before.

For Anyone That Has Ever Done A Sex Scene, It Takes On The Feeling Of Learning A Ridiculous Dance, Like The Electric Slide. It's Not A Sexy Experience.

I Refresh Twitter As Thoughtlessly As Some Twirl Their Hair.

Like Summer Sisters Comforted Me Just Because I Was Like, Okay Things I've Seen With My Own Eyes Are Not So Terrible, And Even Though I Knew Adult Gay People And Had Absolutely No Issue With It. And I Just Couldn't Articulate What Made Me So Uncomfortable About The Space That I Shared With My Friends Becoming A Sexual Space. And It Was Very Healing For Me To Read That, And Feel Like It Was A Part Of Other Friendships, Even Fictional Friendships I Admire.

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I Kind Of Look Like Every Other Girl Walking Around.

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It's Very Easy For Me To Say What Success Is. I Think Success Is Connecting With An Audience Who Understands You And Having A Dialogue With Them. I Think Success Is Continuing To Push Yourself Forward Creatively And Not Sort Of Becoming A Caricature Of Yourself.

I Think That It's Very Important To Be With Someone Who Makes You Feel Like The Best Version Of Yourself. In Some Sense, Your Partner Is A Mirror, And You Have To Like What They're Reflecting Back At You.

Reflecting Back

I Always Thought That If You Had Any Real Proximity To Famous People, That Your Obsession With Famous People, Would Wane Is Some Way. Like, I Wouldn't Want To Deep Google Matthew Mcconaughey's Early Relationships For Hours Before I Go To Bed. And It's Just Gotten Worse.

But I Am A Girl With A Keen Interest In Having It All, And What Follows Are Hopeful Dispatches From The Frontlines Of That Struggle.

I Still Go To A Party And Say Something Embarrassing To Someone, And Then Write Them A Weird E-mail About It The Next Day, And Then Write Them A Text Because I Think They Didn't Get The E-mail. No Matter What Happens With Your Level Of Success, You Still Have To Deal With All The Baggage That Is Yourself.

Okay, 'best Party Ever' -- To Me, That's Like Saying 'best Gym Ever' Or 'best Nature Documentary Ever,' Like How Good Can It Really Be?

Let's Be Reasonable And Add An Eighth Day To The Week That Is Devoted Exclusively To Reading.

I Had No Friends. I Worried A Lot.

I'm So Proud Of Jason's [benjamin] Work. I Can Say This And He Can't, But There's No Group Of Documentary Subjects More Devoted To Their Documentarian. The Vibes Are Really Positive, And I Feel So Lucky.

Running Had Always Been Off The Table For Me. It Just Looks Embarrassing When I Do It. I Viewed It Like Learning A New Language - Best To Learn It As A Child.

Sometimes I Was So Bored That I Started Arguments Just To Experience The Rush Of Almost Losing Him.

I Value My Health And My Happiness. And I've Realized Exercise Can Give Me Both Of Those Things.

It Completely Sickens Me What Our Culture Is Doing To Women. Last Week I Wore A Big Top And Little Shorts And A Bunch Of Stuff Came Out Saying I Was Without Pants. 'the No-pants Look,' It Said. And I Didn't Go Out Without Pants, I Had Shorts On... If Olivia Wilde Had Gone To A Party With A Big Silky Top And Little Shorts She Might Have Been Told Her Outfit Was Cute... What It Was Really: 'why Did You Show Us Your Thighs?'

You Can't Give Any Exciting Speech Without Misremembering Things.

One Of My Favorite Facts About Jason [benjamin] Is That He Collects Shirts From Tattoo Parlors. He Has A Bunch Of Tattoo Parlor T-shirts, But No Tattoos. And Then He Wears, Like, Vans And Jeans. My Boyfriend Said He Looks Like A Modern Bruce Springsteen, Which Is A Pretty High Compliment.

I Felt Like My Parents Were Always Involved With Abstraction, And I Wanted To Do Something Very Specific.

My Uncle's A Lawyer And I Remember Going To See Him In Court And Thinking, 'that's Cool, Too Bad I Could Never Be A Lawyer.'

I Took "forever" [by Judy Blume] To The Bathroom To Read [when I Was Eight] And Then I Heard My Mom Coming So I Stuck It Under The Toilet And Went Running Out. And I Went Back Later To Check For It. And It Was Gone.

From What I Hear, [ "fifty Shades Of Grey" ] Is Not A Way That I Feel Like I Need To Be Turned On Or Like A Hole That Needs To Be Filled In Me.

I Think If You Feel Like You Were Born To Write, Then You Probably Were.

If You Watch My Movie, You Understand I Am Perverse And Weird And Angry And Not Looking To Direct A Film That Ends With A Bunch Of Teenagers Exploding Into Glitter.

When I Graduated College I Had A Series Of Just Humiliating Jobs That I Couldn't Believe I Was At.

I Have Work, And Then I Have A Dinner Thing. And Then I Am Busy, Trying To Become Who I Am.

Confidence Lets You Pull Anything Off, Even Tevas With Socks.

I'm Just Waiting To Be 85 And Be In A Pajama Community. Everyone's Welcome To Join Me.

I Sort Of Tend To Equate Tattoos With Prisoners, Punks Or People With A High Level Of Self-confidence. I Don’t Necessarily Have A Covered-in-tattoos Personality.

Self Confidence

We're The Last F - Ing People Who Have A F - Ing Opinion On What You Should Do With Your Body. Anything That Makes Your Day Easier, As Long As You're Not Feeding Your Baby Crack In Milk, Is Really Good By Us.

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Elizabeth Bowen

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