Mara Wilson Quotes

If you can affect someone when they're young, you are in their hearts forever.

Live your fear." Why didn't we teach kids that? Why wasn't that in a graduation speech? Commencement speakers should start telling the truth: "You're going to fuck up, but most of the time, that's all right.

As an adult, most of my friends are women . . . they, too, had that moment when they realized they were all the “other girls,” and that every girl in the world is, too.

If you’re worried you have a psychosis, you probably don’t, but even if you do, there’s help for it. Fighting with anxiety makes it worse; instead, accept the anxiety, and it will become less scary. Take a moment to breathe and take stock of your surroundings. Remember what’s real. Say, “This sucks, but it will pass.” We aren’t responsible for our thoughts, we are only responsible for what we do with them. Mental health care can and should be taken as seriously as physical health care. A diagnosis is not a bad thing.

Feminism has been slandered as a way to give ugly women greater prominence in society. And, in a way, it is. Feminism is for ugly women. For beautiful women. For all women. Women of all colors, ages, and shapes. It's about giving people an equal chance regardless of their gender. Judging them for what they do and not for what they are.

I spent a lot of time feeling scandalized, and I loved it. There is nothing more fun than being young and judgmental.

The harshest criticism, I noticed, often seemed to come from other women. I didn't want to be that kind of woman, I decided; it wasn't right to hurt others in a way I'd been hurt. From then on, I vowed, I would never say anything negative about a woman's appearance. It had nothing to do with them as a person, and it wasn't something they could easily change. If I didn't want looks to matter, I would have to stop talking and acting like they did.

The ones who scared me, who still scare me, are the girls who see all other girls as competition, who see themselves as the persecuted ones, the ones whom the pretty and popular girls hate. When you believe you're persecuted, you will believe anything you do is justified.

People may have to die, but morbidity will live forever.

I love violent Shakespeare. It is to me what steak is to some people: the bloodier the better.

There is a surprising amount of overlap between the storytelling and burlesque communities, maybe because they both, in a way, involve getting naked. People who choose to be vulnerable are rare. People who manage to do it well are even more so.

Something strange is happening to me: I find myself becoming lighter and less cynical. People use sarcasm and I don’t immediately pick up on it, because I don’t use it anymore. When people do, it’s as if I’m hearing a language I spoke fluently in my childhood, but have since lost. And I just find Woody Allen creepy.

The idea of living forever makes me uncomfortable, and at this point I've lived long enough and seen enough Twilight Zone episodes to know that there's always a catch.

If there’s been a narrative theme in my life, it has been a need to find a narrative in everything.

Before I went to bed that night, Danny and I talked about my mother. Matilda was easily the movie I'd made that she was most excited about, but she had died while we were doing postproduction. I'd always felt sad that she wasn't able to see the completed film. I was floored when he told me he'd brought my mother the film while she was in the hospital. It hadn't been fully edited, but she had been able to see what we had. I feel such a sense of peace knowing that, and I'll always be grateful to Danny for it. You, and your story, were a part of her life till the very end.

The defining characteristic of a hipster—the thing everyone agreed on, and most hated about them—wasn't so much their taste, but their contempt and condescension toward those less cool than themselves.

A lot of men wonder what a woman wants. The answer is power. There are many ways to get it, but the easiest way is to tear other girls down. Any girl can play that game, but there's no way to win, except not to play at all.

From then on, I vowed, I would never say anything negative about a woman's appearance. it had nothing to do with them as a person and it wasn't something they could easily change. If I didn't want looks to matter, I would have to stop talking and acting as if they did.

Depriving myself of joys is one of the great joys of my subconscious.

But there is a place where people like me live and love while fretting constantly about their own mortality and the fate of the universe. I know who I am now: I am a New Yorker.

In the book, you lost your powers. In the movie, you chose not to use them as much. I guess I did a little of both.

I generally assumed a guy was gay until proven straight, taken until proven single, and not interested until he'd put his tongue in my mouth.

Most people have embarrassing videos of themselves as children. Few have theirs copyrighted by Twentieth Century Fox.

[A] person is a person first and a story second.

He was sensitive, so he had to be kind. I think of it whenever I see a young woman fawning all over a nerdy guy, some comedian or actor, thinking he couldn't ever be cruel because he's funny and he wears glasses. He's not conventionally hot, so he's not full of himself, so he'll be a good boyfriend, right?...Guys like that always seem to think they're Duckie from Pretty in Pink when they're actually Steff.

I was living my fears. “Live your fear.” Why didn’t we teach kids that? Why wasn’t that in a graduation speech? Commencement speakers should start telling the truth: “You’re going to fuck up, but most of the time, that’s all right.

I meet Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson at a book signing and ask him how he doesn’t have an existential crisis every day; he knows exactly how insignificant he is, but he seems pretty happy. “Your name’s Mara?” he says, and I nod. “Mara, let me ask you something. Have you taken a philosophy class?” “Yeah, I took ethics and logic and some other ones,” I say. “How did you know?” “Because only people who have taken philosophy classes use the word ‘existential.’” I am officially less down-to-earth than an astrophysicist.

Mean girls come in all shapes and sizes. Some are blond cheerleaders, and some are Francophile brunettes who love Tim Burton and write song lyrics on their Converse. It was rarely the hellhounds who said anything mean to me; they expressed no real malice toward me other than the occasional eye roll. They were at the top and had nothing to gain by pushing me around. The ones who scared me, who still scare me, are the girls who see all other girls as competition, who see themselves as the persecuted ones, the ones whom the pretty and popular girls hate. When you believe you're persecuted, you will believe anything you do is justified.

I used to feel compelled to respond. Once I contacted the author of a list of “Ugliest Former Child Actors” to ask her why, as a woman, she was punishing other women for the way they looked. She wrote back immediately to apologise. “I write stupid things on the internet to pay the bills,” she said. “I can’t afford integrity.

I understand that comes with the territory, and that celebrities have a contract with the public: they get to be the target of jealousy and criticism, and sometimes admiration, in exchange for money and recognition. But I let that contract run out a while ago. It is not my job to be pretty, or cute, or anything that someone else wants me to be.

In my late teens and college years, after I’d had my heart broken again and again, Zack became a kind of symbol. He represented all my relationship mistakes, all my misreadings and misconceptions. He played guitar, so he was an artist. He was an artist, so he was sensitive. He was sensitive, so he had to be kind. I think of it whenever I see a young woman fawning all over a nerdy guy, some comedian or actor, thinking he couldn’t ever be cruel because he’s funny and he wears glasses. He’s not conventionally hot, so he’s not full of himself, so he’ll be a good boyfriend, right? I have Zack to thank for showing me that it often isn’t the case. Guys like that always seem to think they’re Duckie from Pretty in Pink when they’re actually Steff.

When they were things he was afraid to do, he made himself do them. When they were abstract ideas, he told himself not to dwell on what wasn’t rational and what was out of his control.

Children all over the world do ridiculous, borderline dangerous things, and no one around them questions it, because it's ingrained in their culture. So it was with child acting in Southern California.

Back from 'Roam if she wants to'!" yelled Renee. She had that condition unique to choreographers and directors, where they can listen to the same line or lyric thousands of times without ever getting it right.

This belief in the inherent sophistication of all things British was connected to another common American misconception, the one I and every other girl who had a poster of Legolas on her bedroom wall when she was sixteen had committed: mistaking a British accent for a personality.

There isn’t a controversial issue or major human taboo that hasn’t been tackled by a college-age writing group.

My tolerance for public displays of affection is inversely proportional to the time it’s been since I engaged in one.

College is wasted on the cautious.