Gwyneth Paltrow Quotes

When my father died in my arms it had such a profound affect on me that at that very moment when my dad passed I realized that I needed to face my own fears.

My students often say, 'My roommate read this story and really liked it,' and it's hard to convince them that there are things wrong with it. I say, 'Well, people who love you want you to be happy. But I'm your professor and I'm supposed to be teaching you something.'

I learned early on not to listen to either critique - the people who love you or the people who don't like you.

It's a healthy thing to get some bad criticism. I'm still here and I'm fine, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't get to you reading the negative stuff.

But I honestly don't read critics. My dad reads absolutely everything ever written about me. He calls me up to read ecstatic reviews, but I always insist that I can't hear them. If you give value to the good reviews, you have to give value to the criticism.

When I was a kid, I thought my dad was a little bit harsh with me at times. Sometimes I needed an arm around me instead of my dad telling me what I did wrong, but it obviously worked.

A father's disappointment can be a very powerful tool.

I need good friends who can say, 'I love you to death, but you look terrible in that, and you need to change right now.'

It is hurtful to read things which are not true. I am learning to focus only on my work and not pay heed to any negativity.

Negative feedback can make people feel inferior.

Money and success haven't really changed my beliefs or opinions over the years. When I was growing up, my mum and dad split when I was 13 or 14, during the early-Nineties recession. At that time, my dad went bankrupt, and it played a huge part in it all at home.

It doesn't 'hurt' me, hearing criticism from ex-players. It probably disappoints me a little bit more.

I realized that everybody is a critic. They're going to say they hate you, they love you, they this, they that, but at the end of the day, no matter what, I have to be confident in myself as a man and an artist.

I think I'm working on being a lot more positive in my everyday life because I realize comments and things can hurt.

When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody's bothering to tell you anymore, that's a very bad place to be. Your critics are the ones telling you they still love you and care.

I never wanted to be an actor. My dad was an actor, and he never brought joy home, so I didn't view it as something that I would want to do. But I got fired as a secretary, and then I started studying, I started doing it just to earn money. And it took me a long time to learn to love it. And what I loved was telling a story. I tried to avoid making plays or films that weren't telling a story that I felt was important. I discovered in the process that it makes you more empathic because you have to enter someone else's reality and learn to see through many other people's eyes.

You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better.

When somebody on a professional scale says "you did it wrong," it has a pretty intense impact. If you don't have some kind of opposing force to say, "that's all right, that's their opinion," or, "I may have screwed that one up but I'll do better the next time," then you're screwed.

My father had a tremendous influence on me, and I think many children who come from broken homes, esp. when they're very early. My dad left when I was 3 1/2, and he left my mom and I. It was something in order to empower myself.

It felt like it disrupted my rhythm in growing up. But I will say that I'm really grateful for [my mother's] own personal transition.

You and I were different. We came from different worlds, and yet you were the one how taught me the value of love. You showed me what it was like to care for another, and I am a better man because of it. I don't want you to ever forget that.

I remember when I was maybe 27 years old and kind of at the height of my movie stardom - it was around the time of the Oscar and this and that. I think I was very much believing my own hype, which how could you not? I was sitting with my dad, feeling great about my life and everything that was happening, and he was like, "You know, you're getting a little weird...You're kind of an asshole." And I was like, "What the hell?" I was totally devastated. But it turned out to be basically the best thing that ever happened to me.

It's a very painful, eye-opening experience to realize, "Wait a minute, my dad actually doesn't want me to be successful because he's not happy." Whether you call it misery loves company, it's not like parents are bad people. It's a human trait. It's just a thing.

At the core of these movies, Saw One and Saw Two, it's a very real situation. A guy cheats on his wife and didn't value what he had. It's the same thing in my story. Being a dad and playing someone whose last words to his son were 'go to hell'. I say to my son, the last thing I say is 'I love you'.

My mom and my dad never pushed me into performing. They never prohibited me from trying anything, or being anything. They never restricted me in any way. For which I'll be forever grateful.