Sheila Heti Quotes

There are so many images pushed at women and so many ideas of what you're supposed to be. I think there's too much of this superwoman, this woman with a bottom like two billiard balls. There's no real celebration of just being a person.

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

If taking one-self seriously as a woman means committing to a life of grooming, pumicing, pruning and polishing one's exterior for the benefit of onlookers, then I may as well leave my unwieldy rucksack to the top of a bleak Scottish hill and make my home there under a stone, where I'll fashion shoes out of mud and clothes out of leaves.

The burden of originality is one that most people don't want to accept. They'd rather sit in front of the TV and let that tell them what they're supposed to like, what they're supposed to buy, and what they're supposed to laugh at.

A lot of Asian girls love being basic because it's safe. But the thing is, a lot of my fans are those girls, and they want to be bolder, but there's no one they could look up to and be like, 'It's OK to be that way.'

It's nice to stand out and not have to conform to all the beauty standards that just don't even make sense anymore.

I don't like acres of faceless girls walking.

Isn't it incredible how, you know, people have to fight to look like themselves. It's so crazy to me.

conformity has been a devastating thing. Its ill effects continue right to this day. Customers still look at the woman in the next chair and say, 'I'll have what she has.' That's all right for ordering at a restaurant - but not in a beauty parlor.

They know they're going to look beautiful, and I don't think women should look like costumes. They shouldn't look like fashion victims.

I don't understand women who try to be glamour queens.

There's a constant anxiety that comes from having an innate sense of self, yet existing within a homogenised, aspirational culture.

I think pop culture underestimates people. The message is, 'Being yourself is the worst thing you could possibly be.' But people are still attracted to it.

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 was just another girl.

The pressure to keep up with what society tells us is perfect is causing us to enter a time when women are no longer women, but plastic shells of what women used to be.

I don't want to be a pretty boy.

When I was in school, I got there on the first day and everyone had long, blonde, straight hair, and I had short, dark, curly hair. I immediately felt I didn't fit in and started growing my hair. But I've learned that I'm only happy when I am truly me and feel comfortable and confident in myself.

Most women's magazines simply try to mold women into bigger and better consumers.

I find the whole concept of being 'sexy' embarrassing and confusing. If I do a photo-shoot, people desperately want to change me - dye my hair blonder, pluck my eyebrows, give me a fringe. Then there's the choice of clothes. I know everyone wants a picture of me in a mini-skirt. But that's not me.

Listen, 'real' women are the reason the fashion industry exists.

We try to push such crazy ideals onto young women: the Hollywood version of what they should look like, what they should do, and the kind of Prince Charming they should be looking for. We should just be proud of who we are, because we can't be anybody else. So what's the point of trying?

Being an artist and a human in this world always means confronting people who make you feel like you have to act according to their rules.

We're living at this funny time, where we're all urged to express ourselves as unique individuals, but on the other hand, we share a limited set of tools for doing that. It's easy to feel like nothing more than the sum of your consumer choices.

I am so sick and tired of being told what I'm supposed to look like!