Lydia Hearst Quotes

I still don't buy the idea that I'm a 'sex symbol.'

I was essentially paid to perpetuate the myth that we are all, or should at least try to be, 17 and a size 2 forever.

I don't know what it means to be a sex symbol. When I look myself on a magazine cover I don't see it as me, but as someone painted, fluffed, puffed and done up.

I look at Jessica Alba and think she's got a great body. I think that's what women are supposed to look like.

I think people are learning to actually aspire to be objectified.

I'd hate to be a sex symbol. Because you're always having to live up to an image. I haven't got time to sit around doing my nails.

I'll never be like a Barbie girl, that's for sure.

We're teaching young girls that this is what they should be focusing on: rich and famous girls who are rich and famous for nothing.

Women's behavior in handling beauty, even before feminism, was to deny they had any. Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

Not just in modeling, but in society, there's so much pressure about what a woman should be, and, of course, it's just so unobtainable. You can never become that thing, because it's such a projection.

I really don't see little girls growing up and thinking, 'Oh, I'm going to morph myself so I look like Barbie.'

Standards of beauty are arbitrary. Body shame exists only to the extent that our physiques don't match our own beliefs about how we should look.

I'm more of a tomboy than anything and then you see your name on these Top 50 Most Beautiful People lists and you're like, 'What?'

For my writing, and because I love talking to young women about life, I often asked them which would they rather have - a father in the house with them while growing up or a big butt? I tell you 86 percent of the time, girls say a big butt because it gets them further.

We're always bombarded with images from magazines of what looks cool and sexy.

If you've looked at all the glamour magazines lately, all the covers are actresses. If they are on those covers, they are going to try to emulate models. That's just the way it is.

I don't have a problem being labeled a sex symbol, though I personally don't feel very sexy about myself.

I don't know any women who don't think about what they look like, and I don't know any men who don't think about what women look like.

It's not my plan or whatever in my life to be a sex symbol. It never is. You are who you are, but you can't help what you look like. And when you do a film, like for me, it's just not about that. I would prefer to downplay it. I prefer to downplay the sex appeal.

So many of the kids on television have really nice clothes, perfect skin and hair.

American men, as a group, seem to be interested in only two things, money and breasts. It seems a very narrow outlook.

With women, the way they look... it's the core of their self-esteem.

By creating so many illusory images of physical perfection, whether on store aisles or storefront ads, magazine covers or TV shows, we speak more to the profit margins of companies than the self-esteem of today's girls.

I have a friend who, if she has a bad hair day, it affects her whole mood because it is part of her sexuality, her confidence. I don't have that problem any more.

I am self-conscious, and I'm aware of my body. But I struggle with America's limited idea of what perfection is.