Patricia Arquette Quotes

I grew up with just my mom. She and I were like best friends. She's a very independent woman and I admire that about her. In my life, I've tried to be like that. To be okay with being on my own and being independent.

In America we tell our parents to bring their child home and put him or her in a crib; as they get older, children sleep in they own room not in Mom and Dad's room. What are we training them for? It's independence, because that's what being empowered is all about.

Focus on yourself -- do what you want, when you want, without having to consider anyone else's agenda.

There are actresses who build themselves, and then there are actresses who are built by others. I want to build myself.

Choice is the only tool we have that enables us to go from who we are today to who we want to be tomorrow.

I don't want to ever think that I don't know what to do. I want to deal with my own things, to perform my own roles, to be like, "I did this."

So, tomorrow, I’m leaving. And I’m not going to let that happen again with anyone else. I’m going to do what I want to do. I’m going to be who I really am. And I’m going to figure out what that is.

If you educate children, then they are capable of so much - you empower them, you give them choices, and you enable them to create the lives that they dream for themselves.

I go where I'm stimulated. If I'm stimulated, I show up. As Mick Jagger sings: It's my life and I'll do what I want.

For the first time in my life I've done something for me and by choice and not because somebody told me it was good or bad.

Don't use men to get what you want in life. Get it yourself.

When you leave here today and commence the next stage of your life, you can follow someone else's script, try to make choices that will make other people happy, avoid discomfort, do what is expected, and copy the status quo. Or you can look at all that you have accomplished today and use it as fuel to venture forth and write your own story. If you do, amazing things will take shape.

Now I do have a choice, and I'm not going to do anything I don't want to do.

I must work, so as not to be a fool, to get on, to become a journalist, because that's what I want!... I can't imagine that I would have to lead the same sort of life as Mummyand all the women who do their work and are then forgotten. I must have something besides a husband and children, something that I can devote myself to!

To be free is not to have the power to do anything you like; it is to be able to surpass the given toward an open future.

It never seems to occur to anybody that some women may not want to find husbands.

You can make your life whatever you want it to be

If you want sense, you'll have to make it yourself.

I feel like an independent man, and I am. This is the kind of feeling I always wanted. You can rarely get that... Well, I could rarely get that in the early part of my life.

You can't let anybody else tell you what your choices are. Sometimes they won't give you the right choice.

Figuring things out for yourself is the only freedom anyone really has. Use that freedom.

As the children get older and know what they want ... We all grew up at one point.

All of a sudden you realise that you are the person who has control of your life.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

I am completely in charge of the choices I make about what I am doing to lose weight and get healthy. And you know what? We all have this power. Don’t be angry with me for something good I’ve done for myself. Be angry with yourself for not having the courage to do the same in your own life.