Divya Dutta Quotes

I really chose a path after 'Grown Ups' of doing different things that I hadn't tried before, and just trying to take on those challenges.

Your path at 22 will not necessarily be your path at 32 or 42.

I don't know what the future holds. I just try to do roles that I haven't done before.

I've always done more than I ever thought I would. Becoming a professor - I never would have imagined that. Writing books - I never would have imagined that. Getting a Ph.D. - I'm not sure I would even have imagined that. I've lived my life a step at a time. Things sort of happened.

You want roles that challenge you and that scare you a little and where you can really discover something, even about yourself, that maybe you didn't understand.

If I could write a letter to my teenage self, I'd probably say something like: 'You ain't gonna believe what will become of you.'

When certain doors opened around 'Twin Peaks,' I wasn't interested in walking through them. Now I just feel like I'm more open to life. I have two children. My life is not dependent on the business in that way.

If you don't try things and take risks, you don't really grow and figure out what you want.

It's all part of my journey - I've done a lot of stupid things, but you learn by your mistakes.

I'm in the business to push it. I'm not likely to be attracted to characters I've already done.

Goals are ever-changing. I didn't set out to be in a 'Star Wars' film but now I've been in one.

Life changed at 40 for me, as predicted by my acting teacher when I was leaving college. I became more hirable and more interesting... I'm not sure why.

Working on 'Gossip Girl' was a fantastic experience. It was my first real gig and I'm thankful for it - I got to learn a lot. I'm glad I got to explore getting comfortable in my own shoes in the background on a show like 'Gossip Girl.'

Yet if a woman never lets herself go, how will she ever know how far she might have got? If she never takes off her high-heeled shoes, how will she ever know how far she could walk or how fast she could run?

Life has all sorts of hills and valleys, and sometimes you don't end up doing what you had your heart set out on, but sometimes that's even better!

I didn't want to play a lawyer. I didn't want to play a doctor. I didn't want to play a single dad. I wanted to do something I felt I could learn from, something that would be a challenge and something that would not dry up.

That's like the greatest experiences of my life still, 'Friends,' so it's not something I want to get away from, but I do want to try and show something new.

It gets easier as you get older because life deals its particular hand, and our experiences get deeper, richer, more profound. When I gave birth to my son, something happened. It is a huge thing for a woman: a whole set of emotions you never had before arrives, and a love you never had before in your life is now on tap.

I'm never going to rule anything out in life, because most of what I'm doing now, I never intended to do.

High school students ought to seek out campus communities where they feel not only empowered to engage their talents, but also challenged to leave their comfort zones. The ability to embrace new opportunities emerges, in part, from a willingness to take risks and to fail.

You don't have to travel, but I find extended travel to be a helpful tool for reexamining yourself and the constraints you've artificially placed on your life. It's easy to believe everything has to be done one way if you're always in one place around the same people.

The fact that I'm on CNN today is something I never would have guessed as a 13-year-old - or any other age, for that matter.

Early in your career, you feel like there is a formula, a path you have to take. You have to do this movie because this person directed it and you have to be associated with these people. In some ways, I have thrown that out.

Moving out to L.A. for me was a leap of faith. I was very secure in my dinner theater world; I loved it, and I was just like, 'I think there's something else out there for me and I just have to go for it.'

You don't want to pigeonhole yourself.