Lena Dunham Quotes

My sister is bold, independent, and not afraid to wear overalls. Some of her first words as a child were "that's not fair," and she's been committed to social justice ever since. She's my hero. ~ Lena Dunham

What happens over the next few months is like the plot of a children's movie, the kind where a dog finds its owner in spite of insurmountable odds and prohibitive geography. ~ Lena Dunham

I've always had a talent for recognizing when I am in a moment worth being nostalgic for. ~ Lena Dunham

It's not brave to do something that doesn't scare you. ~ Lena Dunham

I have to write people who feel honest but also push our cultural ball forward. ~ Lena Dunham

I felt like my parents were always involved with abstraction, and I wanted to do something very specific. ~ Lena Dunham

I think people like Lena Dunham really opened up the door to what was possible, and they've inspired young women to go into filmmaking and writing and directing and acting in a way that maybe they didn't before, because now there is a path and there are jobs. ~ Judd Apatow

My muses were all the incredible, iconic women of glamour in Hollywood that I have worked with over 15 years. Anjelica Huston, Michelle Pfeiffer, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lena Dunham, Viola Davis, Rihanna, Demi Moore ... ~ Zac Posen

I love what I do, I love every minute of it. ~ Lena Dunham

People are often surprised by the fact that I laugh a lot, that I look like Lena Dunham, and that I don't want to make relationship dramas for the rest of my career. ~ Hannah Fidell

The only time I felt like a weird exploiter - even though I knew I wasn't one - was when I was writing a sex scene between me and my adorable co-star [Adam Driver] in which he had to tell me how much he loved my potbelly. It seemed like a weird wish-fulfillment thing, where I'm directing my own fantasy. ~ Lena Dunham

It's a very specific body. Even great reviews will be like: chubby, portly, overweight ... Sometimes I'm like, 'Ugh, how did I make myself the guinea pig for this?' But on the other hand, hating my body has not been my cross to bear in this life. Which I feel very lucky about. ~ Lena Dunham

I used to be the youngest person on the set [of Bored To Death]. Now I'm very often the oldest person on the set. I feel lucky about that, to be honest. Lena [Dunham], by the way is a doll to me. So much fun to work with and really open. ~ Richard Masur

I didn't know why this was happening. The cruel reality of anxiety is that you never quite do. At the moments it should logically strike, I am fit as a fiddle. On a lazy afternoon, I am seized by a cold dread. ~ Lena Dunham

Related: if someone says "I'm not going to hurt you" or "I'm not a creep," they probably are. Noncreeps don't feel the need to say it all the time. Never ~ Lena Dunham

My relationship to eating, my relationship to critiquing my own shape, all of that has changed since I've started viewing my body much more as a tool to do my work. ~ Lena Dunham

And then, I made myself sick to my stomach for an apologie that never came. ~ Lena Dunham

I wanted to be a poet. I had a really romantic idea about what that would mean. My parents knew some poets, and I liked how they dressed and acted, but I didn't really acknowledge that I only liked reading some bits of poetry while I was peeing or something. ~ Lena Dunham

You know, I always think of myself as sort of ready for every criticism. ~ Lena Dunham

When she writes, which isn't often, I get insanely jealous of the way her mind works, the fact that she seems to create for her own pleasure and not to make herself known. ~ Lena Dunham

Over time, my belief in many things has wavered: marriage, the afterlife, Woody Allen. ~ Lena Dunham

When I graduated college I had a series of just humiliating jobs that I couldn't believe I was at. ~ Lena Dunham

All my freakouts have been pretty private and directed at family pets and/or people I have been dating for too short a time to freak out at in that way. ~ Lena Dunham

I'm always having to be told to brush my hair. ~ Lena Dunham

I am comforted by the fact that I find a real range of female bodies beautiful, and I hope that other people do too. And even if they don't find it beautiful I hope they're just glad that something like it is happening on TV. ~ Lena Dunham

It was only when I started making short films in college and I was looking for girls to play the me-ish parts that I thought, Well, maybe I'm just going to try doing this myself before somebody else comes in and handles it. For a long time my acting was just a marriage of convenience between me and these characters that I was writing. ~ Lena Dunham

I am grown up. That's why I cooked all this food! ~ Lena Dunham

I'm half Jewish half WASP. ~ Lena Dunham

On Girls I like being a mouthpiece for the issues I think young females face today. It's always shocking when people question whether it's a feminist show. How could a show about women exploring women not be? Feminism isn't a dirty word. It's not like we're a deranged group who think women should take over the planet, raise our young on our own and eliminate men from the picture. Feminism is about women having all the rights that men have. ~ Lena Dunham

I can't wait to be eighty. So I can shock people by saying "rim job" in casual conversation. ~ Lena Dunham

The British lady, trying to make conversation, asked Zoe and me what our parents did if we were "bad girls." "When I'm bad, I get a time-out," Zoe said. "When I'm bad," I announced, "my father sticks a fork in my vagina." This is hard to share without alarm bells sounding. We're taught to listen to little girls, particularly when they say things about being sodomized with cutlery. Also my father makes sexually explicit artwork so he's probably already on the FBI's fork-in-vagina radar. ~ Lena Dunham

I am literally obsessed with Lena Dunham. She's, like, my favorite person in the world. I follow her on Twitter; I read her every day. ~ Emma Watson

I'm a fan of Louis C.K., I'm a fan of Lena Dunham. I love shows about people that other people would consider unlikable, or, like, the work of Woody Allen and Albert Brooks. ~ Jill Soloway

I always thought the saddest feeling in life is when you're dancing in a really joyful way and then you hit your head on something. ~ Lena Dunham

Women saying, 'I'm not a feminist' is my greatest pet peeve. Do you believe that women should be paid the same for doing the same jobs? Do you believe that women should be allowed to leave the house? Do you think that women and men both deserve equal rights? Great, then you're a feminist. ~ Lena Dunham

I never start anything with a really overt, political, or even exactly artistic mission statement. ~ Lena Dunham

It would probably be too easy a cop out to say that just Republican males hate me. Though there's a large swath of them, for sure. ~ Lena Dunham

I should stop apologizing for being overly analytical about this, even though I am sorry (not to you but in a deeper way, sorry for my brain chemistry and who I am. I do what I can that isn't heroin to modify it but I was born as anxious and obsessive as any incredibly gorgeous child ever could be.) ~ Lena Dunham

That being said, it's horrible when people you hate get things you want. ~ Lena Dunham

Don't put yourself in situations you'd like to run away from. But when you run, run back to yourself. ~ Lena Dunham

You know, bad poetry I wrote in high school can still be found on the Internet, and, you know, there's a Web log of our college newspaper. You know, there's so many different stages of my creative development are sort of on-record if somebody were to choose to look for them. ~ Lena Dunham

There are two types of women in particular who inspire my envy. The first is an ebullient one, happily engaged from morning until night, able to enjoy things like group lunches, spontaneous vacations to Cartagena with gangs of girlfriends, and planning other people's baby showers. The bigger existential questions don't seem to plague her, and she can clean her stove without ever once thinking, What's the point? It just gets dirty again anyway and then we die. Why don't I just stick my head ... ~ Lena Dunham

I'm not on Twitter, but I am on Instagram and follow Lena Dunham and Usher. ~ Michelle Dockery

But ambition is a funny thing: it creeps in when you least expect it and keeps you moving, even when you think you want to stay put. ~ Lena Dunham

My uncle's a lawyer and I remember going to see him in court and thinking, 'That's cool, too bad I could never be a lawyer.' ~ Lena Dunham

We took a hike in Malibu and shared ice cream. I stayed with him while he had walking pneumonia, heating soup and pouring him glass after glass of ginger ale and feeling his fevered forehead as he slept. He warned me of the life that was coming for me if I wasn't careful. Success was a scary thing for a young person, he said. I was twenty-four and he was thirty-three ("Jesus's age," he reminded me more than a few times). There was something tender about him, broken and gentle, and I could imagine that sex with him might be similar. I wouldn't have to pretend like I did with other guys. Maybe we would both cry. Maybe it would feel just as good as sharing a bed. On Valentine's Day, I put on lace underwear and begged him to please, finally, have sex with me. The litany of excuses he presented in response was comic in its tragedy: "I want to get to know you." "I don't have a condom." "I'm scared, because I just like you too much." He took an Ambien and fell asleep, arm over my side, and as I lay there, wide awake and itchy in my lingerie set, it occurred to me: this was humiliating, unsexy, and, worst sin of all, boring. This wasn't comfort. This was paralysis. This was distance passing for connection. I was being desexualized in slow motion, becoming a teddy bear with breasts. ~ Lena Dunham

I thought I wanted to be a journalist or a novelist. ~ Lena Dunham

If we follow the Buddhist logic that we are becoming part of glory of the universe, one huge consciousness, well, that's just too much togetherness for my taste. I couldn't even do a group art project in second grade. How am I going to share understanding with the rest of the creation? If this proves to be the case, I'm too much of a loner for death, but I'm also scared of being lonely. Where does that leave me? ~ Lena Dunham

Here's what I have to say about being married: someday you will look at him, hating him with every fiber of your being, wishing that he would die the most violent death possible. It will pass.
Hannah Horvath's dying grandmother ~ Lena Dunham

I don't really read reviews ... That's not where my attention goes. ~ Lena Dunham

Running had always been off the table for me. It just looks embarrassing when I do it. I viewed it like learning a new language - best to learn it as a child. ~ Lena Dunham

I learned that people are much more game to mock their own personas than you would think. ~ Lena Dunham

In my deepest self I know this, and the knowledge has kept me from sinking. ~ Lena Dunham

Youth, with all its accompanying risks, humiliations, and uncertainties, the pressure to do it all before it's too late. ~ Lena Dunham

When I was nine, I wrote a vow of celibacy on a piece of paper and ate it. ~ Lena Dunham

When I'm playing a character, I am never allowed to explicitly state the the takeaway message of the scenes I'm performing - after all, part of the dramatic conflict is that the person I'm portraying doesn't really know it yet. ~ Lena Dunham

I have to remind myself that when you exercise, there is a natural calm that comes from knowing that you did something with your body that day. Actually going and working out makes everything else easier and better. ~ Lena Dunham

The fact is that I write under duress, often in my bed, often at the last minute. I'm kind of a binge writer I would say, which I don't support. I was always kind of that way. Probably the time I was the most regular as a writer was college. It was like, what else is there to do when you're living in the Midwest studying creative writing? ~ Lena Dunham

I seriously consider television to be the people's medium. ~ Lena Dunham

I especially like it when a guy starts out rude, explains that it's a defense mechanism, and then turns even ruder once I get to know him. ~ Lena Dunham

I feel like a lot of the female relationships I see on TV or in movies are in some way free of the kind of jealousy and anxiety and posturing that has been such a huge part of my female friendships, which I hope lessens a little bit with age. ~ Lena Dunham

Is what's manifesting as a fear actually some instinct to resist being young? Youth, with all its accompanying risks, humiliations, and uncertainties, the pressure to do it all before it's too late. Is the sense of imminent death bound up in the desire to leave some kind of a legacy? ~ Lena Dunham

I think a fair amount about the fact that we're all going to die. It occurs to me at incredibly inopportune moments - I'll be standing in a bar, having managed to get an attractive guy to laugh, and I'll be laughing, too, and maybe dancing a little bit, and then everything goes slo-mo for a second and I'll think: Are these people aware that we're all going to the same place in the end? ~ Lena Dunham

I am a feminist. And I'm so glad that Lena Dunham exists, because she is one too, and she's quite vocal about it. Yes, women have more freedom and more influence than ever, but it's hardly equal. It's just not. ~ Claire Danes

I was raised on the Internet. ~ Lena Dunham

And one day you'll get out of bed to pee, and someone will say, "I hate it when you leave" and you will WANT to rush back. You'll think, stuff like this only happens to characters played by Jennifer Garner, right? but it's happening to you and it keeps happening even when you cry or misbehave or show him how terrible you are at planning festive group outings. He seems to be there without reservation. He pays attention. He listens. He seems to want to stay. ~ Lena Dunham

Let this book take you to the stars and beyond. ~ Lena Dunham

My thoughts on body image are simple: if you are being kind to yourself mentally and physically you never have anything to be ashamed for, ever. ~ Lena Dunham

I think that it's very important to be with someone who makes you feel like the best version of yourself. In some sense, your partner is a mirror, and you have to like what they're reflecting back at you. ~ Lena Dunham

I would go to work from 9 to 6, go home, nap for two hours, then write from 8 to 2 a.m. ~ Lena Dunham

My parents are artists; in their world, in the world of modern artists, you are supposed to just go into your studio and tune everything out, and your entire relationship with your work is supposed to be a super private one. That was the way to do it and you weren't deeply truly artistic if that wasn't the way you were engaging the press. ~ Lena Dunham

Even when presented with evidence of my own productivity I think that the people accusing me of being productive don't know how hard it is for me to just bend my elbow sometimes. ~ Lena Dunham

I think breakfast is the one meal when you don't have to eat animal, maybe. ~ Lena Dunham

It's interesting how we often can't see the ways in which we are being strong - like, you can't be aware of what you're doing that's tough and brave at the time that you're doing it because if you knew that it was brave, then you'd be scared. ~ Lena Dunham

If you have a bad feeling about someone, don't worry about offending them. Just run. Being polite is how you get your purse stolen or your purse stolen. ~ Lena Dunham

I'm always afraid that I'm being unprofessional, yet I continue to sign all my e-mails 'xoxo.' ~ Lena Dunham

I think Lena Dunham is a very bright and very interesting writer, and what she's accomplished at such a young age absolutely impresses me. ~ Roxane Gay

AMFYOYO - an acronym for "adios motherfucker, you're on your own ~ Lena Dunham

But I am a girl with a keen interest in having it all, and what follows are hopeful dispatches from the frontlines of that struggle. ~ Lena Dunham

Here's who it's not okay to share a bed with: Anyone who makes you feel like you're invading their space. Anyone who tells you that they "just can't be alone right now." Anyone who doesn't make you feel like sharing a bed is the coziest and most sensual activity they could possibly be undertaking (unless, of course, it is one of the aforementioned relatives; in that case, they should act lovingly but also reserved/slightly annoyed). Now, look over at the person beside you. Do they meet these criteria? If not, remove them or remove yourself. You're better off alone. ~ Lena Dunham

I don't love any of my old boyfriends anymore. I'm not sure I ever did, and I'm not sure if at the time I thought I was sure. My mother says that's normal, that men are proud of every one of their conquests, and women wish they could forget it all. She says that's an essential gender difference, and I can't say I disprove her theory. What keeps me from full revulsion, from wanting the sexual equivalent of an annulment, is thinking about what I got from each one that I still hold on to now. ~ Lena Dunham

The idea of being a feminist-so many women have come to this idea of it being anti-male and not able to connect with the opposite sex-but what feminism is about is equality and human rights. For me that is just an essential part of my identity. I hope [Girls] contributes to a continuance of feminist dialogue ~ Lena Dunham

Life is long, people change, I would never be foolish enough to think otherwise. But no matter what, nothing can ever be as it was. Everything has changed in a way that sounds trite and borderline offensive when recounted over coffee. I can never be who I was. I can simply watch her with sympathy, understanding, and some measure of awe. ~ Lena Dunham

This, I remember thinking, is the end. Nothing had ever ended before. ~ Lena Dunham

I always reminded myself that this wasn't exactly where I was meant to be, but pit stops are okay on the road of life, aren't they? ~ Lena Dunham

Each corner is a memory. In that way, it's just like every town. ~ Lena Dunham

I never thought of myself as like, a funny person. ~ Lena Dunham

You've learned a new rule and it's simple: don't put yourself in situations you'd like to run away from. ~ Lena Dunham

None of the pants ever fit me, unless I head into the Maternity section, so I buy mostly sacklike dresses and Cosby sweaters. ~ Lena Dunham

I think of my body as a tool to do the stuff I need to do, but not the be all end all of my existence. ~ Lena Dunham

I can never be who I was. I can simply watch her with sympathy, understanding, and some measure of awe. There she goes, backpack on, headed for the subway or the airport. She did her best with her eyeliner. She learned a new word she wants to try out on you. She is ambling along. She is looking for it. ~ Lena Dunham

Sometimes I was so bored that I started arguments just to experience the rush of almost losing him. ~ Lena Dunham

You can't draw blood from a stone, ~ Lena Dunham

Being treated like shit is not an amusing game or a transgressive intellectual experiment. It's something you accept, condone, and learn to believe you deserve. ~ Lena Dunham

Because the people may not be polite, but when it counts they're something better than polite: they're kind. They're always letting you take your tea when you're short on change. Or letting you take the first cab if you're crying. Or letting you pee when you didn't even buy something. Or rushing to your side when you step in a pothole wearing platforms and eat it, hard. Helping you trap the lop-eared, terrified rabbit that has been living in a Dumbo parking lot for weeks. Giving you directions home. ~ Lena Dunham

The anxiety that has followed me through my life like a bad friend had reappeared with a vengeance and taken a brand-new form ... I didn't know why this was happening. The cruel reality of anxiety is that you never quite do. ~ Lena Dunham

It doesn't occur to so many people that if you don't have a clear heterosexual, gender confirming identity that there are parts of day-to-day life - like using a bathroom or getting your clothes - that just aren't going to be as easy. ~ Lena Dunham

I think Instagram at its best is where you feel like you're getting the most authentic version of the person on the other side of the camera. Someone who does this wonderfully well is Lena Dunham. ~ Kevin Systrom

I think women are conditioned to stand by their man and watch them make it to the top, but most men never believe the person they get into a relationship with is going to rise any higher than she was when they met. It takes a very special, evolved person to be able to deal with change within a relationship. ~ Lena Dunham

Luxury is nice, but creativity is nicer. ~ Lena Dunham