Jennifer Jason Leigh Quotes

When I was with Ellen, I was telling people, If you come out, it's gonna be better for you. But I honestly don't know that.

I wanted people not to look at me as a little girl, but I was a little girl so how could I ask the world not to?

Growing up, I was a target. Speaking the right way, standing the right way, holding your wrist the right way. Every day was a test, and there were a thousand ways to fail, a thousand ways to betray yourself, to not live up to someone else's standards of what was accepted, of what was normal.

You don't realize you're vying for the approval of everyone so much until being yourself is not approved of.

I was mortified by my parents - what they did, who they were, everything. I hated who I was. I hated everything, and I would live in a fantasy world and try to be different. But that's not a lot different, I think, than a lot of kids.

I really never want to try to be cool.

Before I created Christine, I was actually really girly. Maybe I was trying to hide something, but I was trying too hard to be a girl, and I didn't know what it meant. I was afraid of being myself.

I was rejected in school because I didn't look like the big-breasted, beautiful girls. I was awkward and sad. My mother always said, "Be original!" but I didn't understand until I changed to be like everyone else.

From 13/14 I was always hanging about with older boys. Boys in school used to call me names. But outside older boys would pay me attention because I looked older for my age. I was going to clubs from 14. I wanted to be loved.

I spent the first 33 years of my life with secrets, and lots of them. I spent a great deal of energy worrying over what people thought and obscuring the things I was ashamed of... trying to appear what I thought was normal.

I was never a hundred percent comfortable with the women I was hanging with because I was afraid they'd find out that I'm still the same person I was in junior high. With Idina, I didn't have to be ashamed of the nerd inside that came out.

How much of fashion is fueled by insecurity - for better or worse?

I'm not trying to be something that I'm not. I'm just trying to be myself and talk about what I know, and admit what I don't know.

A women who does not know herself has no choice other than to live with other people's evaluations.

This thing about looking for someone less different... It only really worked, he realized, if you were convinced that being you wasn't so bad in the first place.

Anybody who told you to be yourself simply couldn't have given you worse advice.

The whole youth-idolatry oh-god-not-another-birthday thing has to be the most sure-fire way to be unhappy about the way things are progressing in your life.

I think the desire to be with someone beautiful...I just had such a different experience growing up. To be in a position where you're lauded for things that you don't own - and don't think of yourself as - it's so bizarre.

Elizabeth scowled, feeling like a nobody, a nothing. She felt like her entire self had been made worthless. She could change her interests, but she couldn't change her looks. She'd never be six feet tall. She'd never look like a supermodel.

Don't be afraid to show who you are.

I have to come out of the closet of the third person and speak in a more direct way.

At once, it’s clear I cannot gush. We try me playing cocky, but I just don’t have the arrogance. Apparently, I’m too “vulnerable” for ferocity. I’m not witty. Funny. Sexy. Or mysterious By the end of the session, I am no one at all.

A man who has his initials on his pyjamas must be uncertain of himself. Surely you should know who you are at bed time.

Sometimes I worry more about losing weight than gaining weight, because this is how people know and accept me. I do feel like if I wanted to get in better shape, there might be a backlash of, Why isn't she comfortable with herself anymore? So I try to figure out what my own goals are.

I like to talk. I'm a terrible dancer. I love my hometown. I have freckles and oversized ears. I'm a geeks. I have tried not to hide who I am or what matters to me.