Ellen Page Quotes

My work is trying to at least define myself on my own terms, and then if other people enjoy things that's a lovely addition.

A person is bound to work in obedience to and in conformity to that person's own nature.

I just turned 40, and I look at so many performers and so many people who are actually always on time and always have an album out. They don't have actual lives, in my opinion. I feel like I'm so much more than being famous and meeting a musical quota. And I don't know, just the weight of the scrutiny and attention is too weird for me.

I feel a kind of permission and freedom in my work that I might not allow myself in my real life.

I want to do what I can lend my talents to, but I want it to be as a human being and not as a two-dimensional character.

Success in any endeavor depends on the degree to which it is an expression of your true self.

I don't feel I have to be Jackson Browne. Still, I like to say something.

Growing up in the Raleigh theater scene was a big factor in developing the ability, which I have now, to be freely me.

Every time I decide not to do a commercial film, a masala film, I'm closer to myself.

You can sing only what you are. You can paint only what you are. You must be what your experiences, your environment, and your heredity have made you. For better or for worse, you must play your own little instrument in the orchestra of life.

You know how they say, "Find your voice"? That's your voice, in your pajamas. And it doesn't mean that you're going to publish it or print it or people are going to see you in your pajamas. It just means you are going to construct the foundation in your pajamas, in that voice.

The more we are true to ourselves, the more we can connect with and contribute to the world.

All I would tell people is to hold onto what was individual about themselves, not to allow their ambition for success to cause them to try to imitate the success of others. You've got to find it on your own terms.

I think it was a desire to be able to find my own voice. I think that was the big urge within me.

I was born to stand out. I don't care whether or not people will find me attractive on screen. That's not why I became an actor. I know that more and more with each new role.

I would encourage people to realize that you don't have to panic if you're not part of a mainstream, or if you find yourself outside the flow. If it doesn't suit you, don't go along with it. Just sit it out and get your stuff done. Don't just sit moaning or getting drunk—I spent some years doing that. But if you can just come up with something of your own, however minor it is, that's going to be easier to live with when you're at the end of your life.

You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful.

A couple months after my heart attack, fifty-seven years after I'd given it up, I started to write again. I did it for myself alone, not for anyone else, and that was the difference. It didn't matter if I found the words, and more than that, I knew it would be impossible to find the right ones.

We don't have to live up to the expectations of others. Passion is personal. As long as our passion is fueled with the right stuff then keep on plodding forward. I'll never be Mark Twain or Tom Clancy. But that's okay, because neither of them could teach you to mix a boundless number of grays, or where to place the catch light in a portrait.

Style comes from knowing who you are and who you want to be in the world; it does not come from wanting to be somebody else, or wanting to be thinner, shorter, taller, prettier.

I believe that true identity is found . . . in creative activity springing from within. It is found, paradoxically, when one loses oneself. Woman can best refind herself in some kind of creative activity of her own.

My mom has raised me saying, "Always be yourself." So to be able to play a character that verifies just that, is such a thrill and adventure for me.

The most important thing we can tell young people is not to be an imitation of somebody else. That their life is special. They are the creator of their life and their way and find something that they enjoy doing that doesn't even feel like work. It feels like a passion. And then just by doing that and bringing that to the world, they become architects of change.

You can't go around being what everyone wants you to be, living your life through other people's rules, and expect to be happy and have inner peace.

Self-expression is the dominant necessity of human nature.