Robin Weigert Quotes

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

I was raised in the '50s. I was taught by my father that how I looked was all that mattered, frankly.

You don't have to conform to a very specific aesthetic today, whereas 1950s women definitely had to.

There's a different expectation, not just on mothers but on women. We're expected to do it all, to have it all, and look good through the process and have a smile on our face, and that's not always the case.

Just like any other girl, I felt pressure to look a certain way. Act a certain way.

It is very difficult for girls. They're told to look one way, but to act another way.

In civilized life, where the happiness and indeed almost the existence of man, depends on the opinion of his fellow men. He is constantly acting a studied part.

Women have face-lifts in a society in which women without them appear to vanish from sight.

Very often, people talk about mothers, and they think that mother has to lose her sexuality. Mother has to be plain. Mothers cannot be exciting. Mother should not be up on what's going on; she shouldn't know the jargon of the day. And I just find that so old-fashioned!

A man must know how to act in the face of opinion; a woman to submit to it.

When we get married or interviewed for a job or play professional sports or run for president of the United States, we encounter a whole set of standards and expectations. We can be shamed for an outfit that's too slutty, too dowdy, too pricey--take your pick. That's the burden women carry into the fitting room.

People think if you are a celebrity and if you're beautiful, or if you're slim, then life is a bed of roses. Or they think that if you're wealthy, you don't have normal relationship problems, because why would anyone reject you?

I was such a Jewish princess. My whole life was leading up to marrying a rich man and living on 48th Street.

Conformity is painful. You know, it's too tight. Conformity leads to rebellion. So a desire for happiness is in direct conflict with a desire for freedom.

I got a lot of flak; in Texas, football is not only the social thing you must do, but you do it also to prove your manhood. They all couldn't conceive of why I'd want to stop to do 'The Importance of Being Earnest.'

It was a reaction to when I was growing up, and women were supposed to be all blonde hair, gold suntan, and pink lips. It was a real black-and-white opposite of what was considered attractive. I was kicking against something I found really oppressive.

I was a victim of the American Dream, the bourgeois, middle-class dream. All I wanted was a little piece of life, to be married, to have children.

I wish I had some strapping football player husband. It would be such a dream to be 'normal' like that, but I'm just not.

I always tried to fit in, so I was a cheerleader with the orange skin and white-blonde hair, and Hooters was part of that.

There's a certain amount of absurdity to the idea that having extremely crisp clothes is what's going to get you through the door. And there's a certain sad reality to it, too.

Girls are almost always socialized to be perfect: 'Smile, do well in school, don't take too many risks.'

There's a lot of amazing women out there. There's a lot of hot models. But models are the worst, because they're models, you have to always step up and always look good.

There's so much judgment geared toward young girls. People just expect so much from girls. Even physically and aesthetically, people expect us to always look right, to have a certain etiquette - to talk a certain way and act a certain way - and to know certain things. It's all different expectations, but there are always expectations.

When it comes to having conversations with girls what I hear from them is that there is a lot of pressure to look a certain way, act a certain way, perform a certain way, and there are very mixed messages. We are telling them, 'Be yourself, be true to who you are,' but what does that mean in a society of comparison, competition, and individualism?

I hear it all the time: 'What happened to the Grace Potter who didn't used to wear makeup?'