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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. People Taking Pictures Of What They Eat And Showing Them On Their Facebook. People Assume That People Have A Level Of Interest In What They're Doing That's Maybe Far Greater Than It Is, Although There Is An Audience For All That Stuff.

-Lena Dunham

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I Think That People

Lena Dunham

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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. People Taking Pictures Of What They Eat And Showing Them On Their Facebook. People Assume That People Have A Level Of Interest In What They're Doing That's Maybe Far Greater Than It Is, Although There Is An Audience For All That Stuff.

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I've Always Had A Talent For Recognizing When I Am In A Moment Worth Being Nostalgic For.

Self Reflection

You Know, When I First Started Making Online Videos, There Were A Lot Of Filmmakers I Befriended Who Were Doing It Too.

There Is Something Vulnerable About Showing Your Tattoos To People, Even While It Gives You A Feeling That You Are Wearing A Sleeve When You Are Naked.

I Used To Think Twitter Was A Waste Of Time And Sort Of Ran Counter To My Ability To Be Productive And To Write And Now Twitter Feels Like A Really Cool Part Of The Creative Experience.

I Get A Lot Of Unasked For Sexual Confessions.

I've Been A Little Haphazard About How Nude I Get, And The Only Thing That Keeps Me From Getting Anxious About It Is That I've Had Complete Control Over It.

When It's Low-budget, And You Have One Other Person On The Set, You Have To Make Rules.

I Remember Asking My Mom, "do You Think That I Will Ever Have Enough Money To Live Outside Of Your House?" And She Would Be Like, "you Just Never Know."

There Is Nothing Gutsier To Me Than A Person Announcing That Their Story Is One That Deserves To Be Told, Especially If That Person Is A Woman. As Hard As We Have Worked And As Far As We Have Come, There Are Still So Many Forces Conspiring To Tell Women That Our Concerns Are Petty, Our Opinions Aren’t Needed, That We Lack The Gravitas Necessary For Our Stories To Matter. That Personal Writing By Women Is No More Than An Exercise In Vanity And That We Should Appreciate This New World For Women, Sit Down, And Shut Up.

A Girl's Night For Me Is With A Member Of My Family On The Couch, Eating Takeout, Watching Something Good, Going To Sleep Early, It's So Boring, But It's Just What I Need!

My Weight Fluctuates Depending On My Mood And My Current Devotion To My Fitness Routine.

Things That Feel Super Personal Actually Feel Really Universal. It's Sort Of The More You Really Identify Something Specific Within Yourself, The More People Connect To It Because Ultimately We Are All Connected In Some Way.

I Feel Like I Don't Watch That Many Shows With Death.

Barbie’s Disfigured. It’s Fine To Play With Her Just As Long As You Keep That In Mind.

I Didn't Tell Him I Was A Virgin, Just That I Hadn’t Done It “that Much.” It Hurt A Little More Than I'd Expected But In A Different Way, And He Was Nervous Too And He Never Came. Afterwards We Lay There And Talked, And I Could Tell He Was A Really Nice Person. I Commended Myself For Making A Healthy, Albeit Hasty, Partner Choice. I Really Couldn't Wait To Tell My Mom.

I Quit Acting When I Was 11 Because I Was Cast As A Bouncing Ball In 'alice In Wonderland,' And I Felt Slighted And Wounded.

I Love What I Do, I Love Every Minute Of It.

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Who Has Accidentally Napped.

Hell Hath No Fury

It Doesn't Occur To So Many People That If You Don't Have A Clear Heterosexual, Gender Confirming Identity That There Are Parts Of Day-to-day Life - Like Using A Bathroom Or Getting Your Clothes - That Just Aren't Going To Be As Easy.

You Should Always Go Where There Is A 'you-shaped' Hole In The World.

I Feel Like So Much More Than My Gender And So Much More Than My Relationship To My Body And My Relationship To Men. And, But Suddenly You're Sort Of Asked To Be An Expert.

At My Age, No One Is Married, No One Has Kids, No One Has A Career.

I Never Set Out To Make Any Statements About A Specific Character, I Just Set Out To Tell What Feels Like Is A Truthful Story, A Person That You And I Might Truly Encounter.

I Would Go To Work From 9 To 6, Go Home, Nap For Two Hours, Then Write From 8 To 2 A.m.

I've Only Recently Realized That I Have A Radically Different Relationship With My Parents Than A Lot Of People.

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.

I Think Grace [dunham] And I Are Always Working From A Personal Place, And The Fact That These Were Issues That We'd Been Talking About In Our Own Families Really Clicked, But Also Jason's [benjamin] Passion About It And His Clear Sense That This Was Going To Be Something Emotional And Remarkable To Watch. It Was Very Hard Not Get Excited About It And Want To Help In Any Way We Could.

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.

I Went To Schools That Were Small Enough That Basically Everyone Was In A Play. I Played A Bouncing Ball In A Production Of Alice In Wonderland And A Fat Man In An Italian Commedia Dell'arte Play. I Was Given Some Small Chances.

I Learned About Sex Pretty Early When I Was, I Remember, My Friend Amanda Delauro Explained It To Me When I Was Six And Then I Went Home And I Told My Parents, "oh My God, Amanda Said This Ridiculous Thing, Can You Believe How Stupid This Is? She's Insane.

I Consider Being Female Such A Unique Gift, Such A Sacred Joy, In Ways That Run So Deep I Can't Articulate Them. It's A Special Kind Of Privilege To Be Born Into The Body You Wanted, To Embrace The Essence Of Your Gender Even As You Recognize What You Are Up Against. Even As You Seek To Redefine It.

But I Also Think When We Embark On Intimate Relationships, We Make A Basic Human Promise To Be Decent, To Hold A Flattering Mirror Up To Each Other, To Be Respectful As We Explore Each Other.

Intimate Relationships

I Thought I Was Really A Radical, Political Person, Which Of Course I Am Not.

I Love Flawed Female Characters, Duking It Out.

My Shape Reminds Me A Lot Of My Grandmother, Whom I Was Really Close To. She Died When I Was 13, And We Have A Really Similar Body Type, The Squat New England Woman Who Can Roll Out Dough And Bring In Your Lawnmower. That's Kind Of The Vibe Of My Body, And I'm Into It.

I Don"t Feel Like There Are A Tremendous Amount Of Roles For The Size I Am.

When You're Writing A Script You Have The Option To Embellish On Life Or Switch The Order Of Events Or Make It Generally More Cinematic. I Would Stick Too Closely To My Own Experience And Not Necessarily Think About The Fact That It Needs To Have An Event Happen. Realising That I Could Channel My Own Experience Into A Story That Was Slightly More Cinematic Was A Very Important Moment For Me - Allowing Myself To Accept That The Kind Of Screenwriting I'm Doing Is A Work Of Fiction.

Basically, Anything A Sexual Predator Might Do To Woo A Small Suburban Girl, I Was Trying.

I Would Rather Spend My Entire Life Doing Nothing Than Have My Name Attached To Something Mediocre.

Katherine Heiny's Work Does Something Magical: Elevates The Mundane So That It Has The Stakes Of A Mystery Novel, Gives Women's Interior Lives The Gravity They So Richly Deserve -- And Makes You Laugh Along The Way.

I Think About My Best Friendship - Which The Marnie-hannah Friendship In Girls Is Based On - As Like A Great Romance Of My Young Life.

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I’m Not Super Thin, But I’m Thin, For Like, Detroit

I Think That Social Networking Makes People More Connected, Yet More Distant, So There Are People With Less Ties To Real Friend Groups And Less A Sense Of Self.

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.

The Male Capacity For Turning The Negative Into A Compliment Is Really Alarming.

I'd Love To Write Something For A Male Protagonist. That's Sort Of The Next Frontier For Me. I Think It'd Be Really Amazing To Write The Kind Of Parts That I Love For Women But For A Guy.

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

I Feel Prettier With A Naked Face And Chapstick. But A Good Haircut Makes A Huge Difference.

I Know That When I Am Dying, Looking Back, It Will Be Women That I Regret Having Argued With, Women I Sought To Impress, To Understand, Was Tortured By. Women I Wish To See Again, To See Them Smile And Laugh And Say, It Was All As It Should Have Been.

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The Thing That's So Hard About Being A Kid Is You Don't Have Enough Knowledge To Explain Things Yourself.

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

No One Wants To See A Tattoo On A Stomach.

Can We Call A Moratorium On The Use Of The Term 'ladyparts'? Grazia!

I Felt Like I Was A Writer, And I Just Thought Filmmaking Was The Best Way For Me To Express That, Because It Allows Me To Embrace The Visual World That I Love. It's Allows Me To Interact With People, To Be More Social Than Fiction Or Poetry, And It Felt Like The Right Way For Me To Tell The Stories That Felt Pressing To Me.

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

I Started Writing Plays, But The Fact That Plays Don't Last Forever Was Too Much For Me To Bear.

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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.

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.

I'm Not Great At Dating, But I Need To Do It To Relax.

There Is No Way That My Mother Hasn't Influenced My Career. She's My First Critic. She's My Best Critic. She Has The Best Instincts From Writing To Style To Editing, To The Visual Elements Of My Career.

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There's People Who Don't Want To See Bodies Like Mine Or Bodies Like Their Own Bodies.

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 Can’t Imagine A Passionate Affair With A Native Man

I Have An Authority Problem.

I Always Thought The Saddest Feeling In Life Is When You're Dancing In A Really Joyful Way And Then You Hit Your Head On Something.

When Someone Anonymous Tells Me I'm Fat, That's Not A Person To Me. If They're Not Going To Acknowledge Me As A Person, I'm Certainly Not Going To Acknowledge Them As A Person.

I Had Always Written. I Had Written Stories And Poems. Then I Started Writing Plays.

I Kind Of Look Like Every Other Girl Walking Around.

If You're Writing, You're Starting In Private. It Can Really Be This Amazing, Private, Freeing Experience. Forget That It's For Other People - That Comes In Later.

It Is Really Funny How Even Cool Chicks Are Sort Of Like, 'our Moms Covered That Feminism Thing And Now We're Living In A Post-that World,' When That Just Isn't True.

I Seriously Consider Television To Be The People's Medium.

Pushing Boundaries

It's Interesting How We Often Can't See The Ways In Which We Are Being Strong - Like, You Can't Be Aware Of What You're Doing That's Tough And Brave At The Time That You're Doing It Because If You Knew That It Was Brave, Then You'd Be Scared.

Let's Call A Spade A Spade - A Lot Of Times When You Are A Vegetarian It Is A Just Not Very Effective Eating Disorder.

Eating Disorder

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 Don't Really Have A Place Where People Can Reach Me Via Email Because It Got A Little Overwhelming. People Tweet Things At Me Like, "oh Dm Me For A Great Story That You'll Definitely Need To Use On The Show," Which I Don't, You Know, Dm Them.

Everyone Needs Something From Me.

I Went To An Amazing School In Brooklyn Called St. Anne's That's A Really Kind Of Creative Hot Bed.

I'm Ridiculous In My Oversharing; My Mom And Sister Are Very Open But A Little More Judicious Than Me... And My Father Is A Decidedly Private Person.

I Think Romantic Comedy, When Done Right, Is My Favorite Genre. It's Just A Genre That's Very Human.

I Was Raised On The Internet.

I Had No Friends. I Worried A Lot.

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 Hate To Be The Person That's Like, "we're Doing Something That's Never Been Done Before."

I Didn't Drink In The Essence Of The Classroom. I Didn't Take Legible Notes Or Dance All Night. I Thought I Would Marry My Boyfriend And Grow Old And Sick Of Him. I Thought I Would Keep My Friends, And We'd Make Different, New Memories. None Of That Happened. Better Things Happened.

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.

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.

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

Luxury Is Nice, But Creativity Is Nicer.

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.

You Get Reactions And You Connect To People And I Love Twitter.

Once, My Little Sister Was Walking Down The Street In Her Thick Black Glasses, And A Homeless Man Muttered, Talk Nerdy To Me.

I Mean, I - It's So Funny, I Am, You Know, I Am, You Know, A Working Woman Out In The World, But I Still Live With My Parents Half The Time. I've Been Sort Of Taking This Very Long, Stuttering Period Of Moving Out.

The Parts I Enjoy Playing Aren't Really Available To Me. So I Have To Write Them.

Part Of Being A Feminist Is Giving Other Women The Freedom To Make Choices You Might Not Necessarily Make Yourself.

You’ve Learned A New Rule And It’s Simple: Don’t Put Yourself In Situations You’d Like To Run Away From. But When You Run, Run Back To Yourself, Like That Bunny In Runaway Bunny Runs To Its Mother, But You Are The Mother And You’ll See That Later And Be Very, Very Proud.

I Think Some People Are Really Connected To Who They Were As Children. And Some People Aren't.

I Thought About Starting A Novella Club Because It Seemed Less Ambitious.

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.

There Are So Many Reactions To Art That Make Sense To Me - But 'ick' Means Something.

I've Always Been Someone Who Feels Better, If I See What I'm Going Through In A Movie.

I Felt Highly Anxious In A Way That I Didn't Think Other Children Were.

Instagram What You Think Is Funny And Exciting And Try Not To Include Any Animal Abuse!

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. People Taking Pictures Of What They Eat And Showing Them On Their Facebook. People Assume That People Have A Level Of Interest In What They're Doing That's Maybe Far Greater Than It Is, Although There Is An Audience For All That Stuff.

My Thoughts On Body Image Are Simple: If You Are Being Kind To Yourself Mentally And Physically You Never Have Anything To Be Ashamed For, Ever.

Throughout The Day I Often Ask Myself, Could I Fall Asleep Right Now? And The Answer Is Always A Resounding Yes.

I Support Selfies! I Think The War On Selfies Is Really Unjust!

I Didn't Have To Wait Six Years To Get My Show On The Air, Worry That Someone Else Had A Similar Idea, Or Wait Around For Notes That Took My Voice Out Of The Show.

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

Purity And Innocence

I Sometimes Want To Make A Book Of Every Tattoo I Wanted To Get Before I Actually Got A Tattoo, Because There Were So Many Awful Ideas And Concepts.

Every Time I Start Feeling Sexy I Trip.

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

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.

I Think Breakfast Is The One Meal When You Don't Have To Eat Animal, Maybe.

It's Not Brave To Do Something That Doesn't Scare You. Performing In Sex Scenes That I Direct, Exposing A Flash Of My Weird Puffy Nipple, Those Things Don't Fall Into My Zone Of Terror.

My Dad Finds Twitter Just Infinitely Unrelatable. He's Like, 'why Would I Want To Tell Anybody What I Had For A Snack, It's Private?!' And I'm Like, 'why Would You Even Have A Snack If You Didn't Tell Anybody? Why Bother Eating?'

It’s Interesting To See How Other People React To An Oversharer.

The People Accusing Me Of Being Productive Don't Know How Hard It Is For Me To Just Bend My Elbow Sometimes.

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.

My Sister Is Bold, Independent, And Not Afraid To Wear Overalls. Some Of Her First Words As A Child Were "that's Not Fair," And She's Been Committed To Social Justice Ever Since. She's My Hero.

Guys Warning Girls Not To Fall In Love With Them Is So Truly Douchey That It Should Have A Higher Success Rate.

Falling In Love

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

When I Write I'm Never Really Thinking About Themes Or The Universal.

Artists Themselves Are Neurotic And Fearful People, And You Can Look At Their Work And Figure Out What They're Scared Of.

If Someone Doesn't Answer Your Email Within Six Hours, It Means They Hate You.

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 Never Thought Of Myself As Like, A Funny Person.

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 Learned That People Are Much More Game To Mock Their Own Personas Than You Would Think.

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.

What A Snarky Jerk. (obviously, I Later Slept With Him.)

I've Never Thought Of Myself As An Actor, So Somebody Recognizing Me For That Would Be A Real Shock.

The Experience Of Directing Yourself In A Sex Scene Is, In A Way, Great. It's The Fantasy We All Have In Our Lives All The Time.

I Deserved Kisses. I Deserved To Be Treated Like A Piece Of Meat But Also Respected For My Intellect.

I Am Comforted By The Fact That I Find A Real Range Of Female Bodies Beautiful, And I Hope That Other People Do Too. And Even If They Don't Find It Beautiful I Hope They're Just Glad That Something Like It Is Happening On Tv.

I Can Play Very Annoying Girl, Very Lost Girl And Then All The Things In The Spectrum Between.

I Do Think Girls In Their Twenties Accept Certain Kinds Of Lesser Treatment Than They Would At Other Times In Their Lives.

The Work That's Interesting To Me In Other People Is Really Confessional.

I Have To Take My Shoes Off, You Guys.

In Hollywood, You've Got A Hundred People On Set, And Shooting The Sex Scene You're Wearing Nude-toned Underwear And Tape On Your Nipples. Nothing Is Going Beyond Where You Want It To Go.

You Just Have To Work, We All Have To Work Really Hard To Take Care Of Ourselves And Feed Ourselves Good Information, Just Like We Feed Ourselves Good Food. Feed Ourselves Good Books And Good Messaging And The Things That Make Us Feel Like We Can Be Connected With Ourselves And Others In A Deeper Way.

I'm Not Jealous In Traditional Ways - Of Boyfriends Or Babies Or Bank Accounts - But I Do Covet Other Women's Styles Of Being.

My Parents Are Pretty Liberal. But They Were Just You Know Trying To Look Out For My Innocence Or Whatever. But My Babysitter Had "forever" [by Judy Blume]. And I Said "well I've Read Judy Blume Books, Can I Borrow That?" And She Said No, This One's Not Appropriate For You. Which Obviously, Got Me Really Worked Up. So I Took It.

You're A Small Business And You Have To Take Care Of Yourself The Way You Would A Small Business And Take Care Of Yourself The Way Any Small Business Owner Would.

My Relationship To Eating, My Relationship To Critiquing My Own Shape, All Of That Has Changed Since I've Started Viewing My Body Much More As A Tool To Do My Work.

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

There's A Certain Grace To Having Your Heart Broken.

You Can't Force Other People To Like You And You Just Kind Of Have To Ride The Wave. I Think I Could Have Saved Myself A Lot Of Sleepless Nights With That Advice.

Women Saying "i'm Not A Feminist" Is My Greatest Pet Peeve. Do You Believe That Women Should Be Paid The Same For Doing The Same Jobs? Do You Believe That Women Should Be Allowed To Leave The House? Do You Think That Women And Men Both Deserve Equal Rights? Great, Then You're A Feminist.

The Biggest Fear That Everybody Has Is Dying. Not To Get Too Meta On You, But I Think Every Fear That People Are Trying To Work Out Is Really Like I'm Going To Die And No One Is Going To Care, And It Doesn't Matter Because God Might Not Exist. That's What People Are Trying To Figure Out. I Wish We All Had One Fear So We Could Think About It Together And Figure Out A Solution, But We're All Doing Different Things.

One Of The Reasons I'm So Proud Of My Mother Is She Took Her Skills Of Over A 40 Years Photographic Career And Translated That To A Film.

Here's What I Have To Say About Being Married: Someday You Will Look At Him, Hating Him With Every Fibre Of Your Being, Wishing That He Would Die The Most Violent Death Possible. It Will Pass.

We're Living In A World Where [judy Blume] Books Were Ever Banned, And Now Like "fifty Shades Of Grey" Is Being Read In High Schools. Like It's Just A Wild.

We Both Followed Our Hearts And Had No Choice But To Hurt Each Other Deeply.

You Know, I Always Think Of Myself As Sort Of Ready For Every Criticism.

I Find It Really Awkward To Do A Scene Where I'm Supposed To Seem Like I'm In Love.

When I Was Nine, I Wrote A Vow Of Celibacy On A Piece Of Paper And Ate It.

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

I Seriously Consider Television To Be The People's Medium. Like The Idea Of Seeing Your Parents Naked Or Having Somebody Go Down On You And Worrying About Whether You Smell, Or Worrying About Whether Your Body Is Weird Or What Goes Across The Face Of A Person Who's Supposed To Be Experiencing Pleasure But Isn't - Those Are Things I'd Love To Normalize On Tv.

I Feel Like You Don't Know If Someone's Equipped For A Romantic Relationship Until They're Out Of Their Twenties.

Romantic Relationship

I Had No Clue What Anyone Was Talking About Like, You Know I Don't Think I, I Don't Think Any Of The Depictions Of Sex Were More To Me Than Just Like An Image Of Two People's Arms Rubbing Together [when I Was Eight], I Just Had No Clue.

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

My Mom Said The Term Heavy Petting Existed A Lot When She Was In High School.

I'm Always Afraid That I'm Being Unprofessional, Yet I Continue To Sign All My E-mails 'xoxo.'

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.

There Is A Sort Of Backlash Of People Who Feel Like You're Not Representing Them Accurately, And You Want To Say As Elegantly As You Can, "i Wasn't Trying To Represent You I, Was Just Doing What I Could Do To Make Being Alive Easier For Me." And If It Helped Anyone Or Made Them Feel Comforted In The Process Then It's The Greatest Thing You Can Ask For.

I Just Hope That I Continue To Keep A Line Between My Private Life And Who I Play, Even If They Are Closely Intertwined, And So I'm Careful. I Don't Even Know Where My Line Is, But I Know I Have A Line.

It Was Only When I Started Making Short Films In College And I Was Looking For Girls To Play The Me-ish Parts That I Thought, Well, Maybe I'm Just Going To Try Doing This Myself Before Somebody Else Comes In And Handles It. For A Long Time My Acting Was Just A Marriage Of Convenience Between Me And These Characters That I Was Writing.

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?'

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

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

This Could Very Easily Be Taken Out Of Context, And I Think It's Funny Now, But I Remember Looking In The Mirror As A Kid And, It Would Be Like For An Hour At A Time, And I'd Be Like, 'i'm Just So Beautiful. Everybody Is So Lucky That They Get To Look At Me.' And Of Course That Changes As You Get Older, But I May Have Held On To That Little-kid Feeling That Was Me Alone In My Bathroom.

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?

I Have To Remind Myself That When You Exercise, There Is A Natural Calm That Comes From Knowing That You Did Something With Your Body That Day. Actually Going And Working Out Makes Everything Else Easier And Better.

As A Woman Who Doesn't Necessarily Fit The Beauty Standard In Hollywood... I Really Related To The Narrative Of Looking For Something You Felt Comfortable In That Would Properly Express Your Identity, Especially When Your Identity Didn't Feel Like It Necessarily Matched The One That Was Being Imposed On You.

Don't Put Yourself In Situations You'd Like To Run Away From. But When You Run, Run Back To Yourself.

Self Reflection

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'm Always Having To Be Told To Brush My Hair.

I Have Sort Of A Zen Body Philosophy, I'm Sort Of Like: We're One Weight One Day, We're One Weight Another Day, And Some Day Our Body Just Doesn't Even Exist At All! It's Just A Vessel I've Been Given To Move Through This Life. I Think About My Body As A Tool To Do The Stuff I Need To Do, But Not The Be All And End All Of My Existence. Which Sounds Like I Spent A Week At A Meditation Retreat, But It's Genuinely How I Feel.

I'm So In Awe Of What Visual Artists Do And I Do Understand The Differences Of What Visual Artists Do. I Have A Small Art Collection I Hope To Expand.

Directing Is About As Visual As I Get And I Will Leave Artmaking To The Rest Of The Family.

I Wish That Author [ E. L. James] All The Success In The World. It's Just Not For Me.

Feminism And Issues Surrounding Being Female In The World, Always, But Particularly Right Now At This Complicated Cultural Moment. It's A Huge Part Of What's Important To Me.

I've Always Been Someone In [childhood] Period Of My Life Sort Of The Pains And Anxieties Of Being Young Are The Things That Have Really Stuck With Me.

I Feel Like A Lot Of The Female Relationships I See On Tv Or In Movies Are In Some Way Free Of The Kind Of Jealousy And Anxiety And Posturing That Has Been Such A Huge Part Of My Female Friendships, Which I Hope Lessens A Little Bit With Age.

I Have Never Been A Physically Engaged Person. Like, I Was Not An Athletic Kid. I Was The Kid Who Came Up With A Thousand Excuses Not To Take A Gym Class. Even Now, If I Could, I Would Do All My Work From Bed.

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Austin Grossman

William Golding

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