JENA MALONE

I tell my agent that I want to read everything.

When I'm not working, I definitely I like waking up at noon.

I love talking about movies that mean something to me.

In L.A., if you're an actor, your personal and professional lives are too intertwined.

I used to want to be a children's writer, because I would have all these great ideas when I was little, and I'd write them and draw them, and turn them into class.

Belief is such a powerful thing - but because it is, it can also be very destructive and it's very easily manipulated.

Some locations are so terrible, you can't even breathe, and you still have to act.

A lot of the powerful religious leaders, from Jesus to Buddha to Tibetan monks, they're really talking about the same things: love and acceptable, and the value of friendship, and respecting yourself so you can respect others.

It's very easy to make certain decisions that affect your life that you have no perspective on.

A Christian high school is just like any other high school in the sense of the politics and all of these levels of who's cool and what to wear.

Advice is such a tricky thing when you're young.

We are all searching for some form of family or foundation - for a place we can feel safe and secure.

For a child actor, it's a matter of listening, reacting, and being able to put yourself in a new place without being scared.

And I love writing; I've been writing ever since I was seven.

If we could all just laugh at ourselves, in hard times or good times, it would be an incredible world.

But I've really learned you don't have to fit in. No matter where you go, you're always going to be you and if they don't like you for who you are, then what's the point of being someone else?

I think sleep's really important. I value it as much as waking up and having a full day.

There is a point in every young person's life when you realize that the youth that you've progressed through and graduate to some sort of adulthood is equally as messed up as where you're going.

No matter who the characters are, you can strip them down and find small universal truths.

Adolescence isn't just about prom or wearing sparkly dresses.

I think it's an individual thing. Your mountains are my molehills.

You never know how things are going to fit. So, you don't count your eggs until they hatch. You can't pre-project that. I mean, this was literally like a childhood fantasy of mine, to be able to work in action. You know, growing up on Disney films like Pocahontas and wanting to enter into that, or Aladdin and how he's fighting - being your own hero, being your own heroine is like every one's dream.

I think the older you get, you start to break down the myth and you get to the dirt of it - and if you still love the dirt, then I think you should stay on board.

I'm sort of coming of age into a different time of acting, and I feel kind of like a kid again. I used to think that I could climb anything, do anything. But I've just been like a skinny white girl my whole life.