Michelle Pfeiffer Quotes

When I go to work and when I'm in the public eye, I take much better care of myself. Because when I'm not working, I do indulge more.

Just when you think you've got your kids figured out, they change on you. For somebody who's controlling, you can't control it. Of course, I don't think I'm controlling, but that's what I've been told!

I act for free, but I demand a huge salary as compensation for all the annoyance of being a public personality. In that sense, I earn every dime I make.

I like understanding what's underneath, what's really motivating people. When I was younger, I wanted to be a psychiatrist, so I think it has to do with that.

People make a lot of jokes about the empty nest. Let me tell you, it is no laughing matter. It is really hard.

If you think hitting 40 is liberating, wait until you hit 50; and I was surprised at how liberating it was. The anticipation of something is always much worse than the reality.

When I was very young I never thought I was attractive, because I was a tomboy and I was always the biggest girl in the class.

My kids would probably say that I'm too strict. They probably would say that, and I try not to be, but I'm probably more on the conservative end of that. At the same time, I know full well that ultimately I don't really have control over them.

My walk is consistently made fun of.

I was kind of surprised to learn how controlling I am. I never thought of myself in that way. I think the root of the control issues is usually fear, because you want to know what's going to be happening at any given moment.

I don't believe men want women to have grotesque plastic surgery or be undernourished and bony. All the plastic surgery in the world can't stop you getting older.

I guess I sort of just feel like I am lucky.

When I wasn't working I didn't know what to do with myself and sort of didn't exist, in a way, when I wasn't working, so I was like two different people. I am not like that anymore.

Most people in the world have seen more of me on-screen than my kids have.

It takes years for me to trust; I know that about myself. A lot of it is because I am so private, and so reluctant to make myself vulnerable.

I do portraits. I usually do live models in a class environment, but I've been painting at home more. I really love the human form, and I love faces. I've tried to do landscapes a few times.

I have days when I just feel I look like a dog.

There's always an imbalance with actors and actresses in the industry. And I think because there are just fewer movies overall being made, it's that trickle down effect.

I've been painting off and on since I was in sixth grade. I don't paint when I'm acting - I'm not really able to split my focus that way. I do it intensely when I'm doing it, but I'm reluctant to take myself too seriously as a painter because that would mean there would be pressure to be better than I am.

I do sometimes feel like the paparazzi are really what ran me out of L.A. They're just giving everyone a bad name.

And I'm a really happy person, I enjoy life. I think you see that on people. I think there's nothing more aging than misery.

I said, going into acting, 'I'm never moving to L.A.,' because it scared me. But there was no way you could build an acting career in Orange County.

Everybody is vulnerable to being in relationships where they get fooled. I'm no different. It's just human nature.

I'm afraid to be alone, I'm afraid not to be alone. I'm afraid of what I am, what I'm not, what I might become, what I might never become. I don't want to stay at my job for the rest of my life, but I'm afraid to leave. And I'm just tired, you know? I'm just so tired of being afraid.

I look like a duck. It's the way my mouth curls up, or my nose tilts up. I should have played Howard the Duck.

My favorite food in the world is Mexican food. I'm not a dessert person. I'm more of a crunchy, salty girl. I could live on chips and salsa. I would take a Mexican meal over some fancy French cuisine anytime.

I worked so hard for so long - I did a lot of movies. I also worked a lot when my kids were smaller, before they were in school.

I used to smoke two packs a day and I just hate being a nonsmoker ... but I will never consider myself a nonsmoker because I always find smokers the most interesting people at the table.

This is the thing I've learned, after a lot of couch time: There are always red flags. You need to look for those red flags along the way so you don't continue to make the same mistakes with another person.

I still think people will find out that I'm really not very talented. I'm really not very good. It's all been a big sham.

For me, getting comfortable with being famous was hard - that whole side of it, the loss of anonymity, the loss of privacy. Giving up that part of your life and not having control of it.

I don't think it's easy for women to watch themselves age. And I think it's obviously doubly hard to grow older when you are a public figure and you constantly have to see your image all the time, and people are constantly pointing it out.

I probably would like to do more than I do, because I love working, but I can't work more than I work because I have to do some facetime with the family, and the work that I do is just all-encompassing.

I even had breasts that had mechanisms that could make them droop. It was a shock in the beginning. Talk about special effects!

One thing that's great about having kids, especially given my career, is that it forces you out of your narcissism. I mean, I'm in a career where my product is me. So it was nice to have something, someone, come along and take the focus off me. I really needed to give myself some distractions from myself.

Honestly, depending on what stage I'm at in my life, my opinion on plastic surgery changes. I've never been against plastic surgery - I'm against bad plastic surgery. I'm against the overuse of plastic surgery.

I do think that, at one time, being an actress was the equivalent almost of being a prostitute. It garnered roughly the same respect. That's changed a lot, thank goodness.

Somewhere along the line I made the switch and was able to look at the bight side rather than the dark side all the time. Now I look at everything I have and think how lucky I am.

I relax by taking my bicycle apart and putting it back together again.