Jennifer Lawrence Quotations

Teenagers only have to focus on themselves - its not until we get older that we realize that other people exist.

I went through a wood-chopping phase when I was nine or 10.

Anytime you're away from your home filming, it messes with your head.

My cousin cleaned out a shotgun for me and let me carry it around the house, because he said, 'Anybody who knows anything about guns is going to know in a second if someone has held a gun before.' I didn't want to be that person. I wanted to be practiced.

Did I feel naked being naked? Yeah. Totally.

Even as far back as when I started acting at 14, I know I've never considered failure.

When you don't have anybody to take care of you, then you could go both ways: You could do whatever you want, or you could take charge and be your own parent.

I don't know if this is why everything has worked so well and I'm not sure I'd recommend this kind of thinking to anyone else, but I've always known I'd be successful in acting. I have certainly worked for it.

But really, for the most part - doing a prequel is great because you do have room to kind of free this character and how they got to where they are instead of being a slave to exactly what the previous actor did.

I just kind of opened up and said, 'I feel like a rag doll. I have hair and makeup people coming to my house every day and putting me in new, uncomfortable, weird dresses and expensive shoes, and I just shut down and raise my arms up for them to get the dress on, and pout my lips when they need to put the lipstick on.

The internet to me is kind of like a black hole, and I never really go on it.

I grew up in Kentucky, but I did not grow up like that. I had heat, and I didn't have to shoot my dinner or anything.

I've done archery for about six weeks, and rock climbing, tree climbing - and combat, running and vaulting. But also yoga and things like that, to stay catlike!

I wanted to be a doctor when I was little, so I'm okay with blood and guts.

How do I let the director know how obsessed I am and willing to do anything for the movie? Like, I wanted to write this one director a letter, so I wrote him a handwritten note. But then I was like, 'How many people are writing this guy handwritten letters? Is it going to seem cheesy? What do I do?'

And when I'm on set, I'm just thinking about the script and of working. I think I've stayed focused on the work so much that I haven't really noticed my life start to change except for I've gotten busier.

As hard as it is and as tired as I am, I force myself to get dinner at least once a week with my girlfriends, or have a sleepover. Otherwise my life is just work.

I never think it's right to chew gum in front of other people, but a lot of times I'll come in for a meeting chewing gum and I'll forget I'm chewing it. Then you don't want to swallow it because it stays in your system for seven years or something, so I've asked to throw it away. I've started to wonder if that's why I didn't get certain movies.

I get photographers hiding in my bushes. We're way past autographs. We're into being stalked and followed.

For 'X-Men' I was lifting a lot of weights. I actually lost a lot of mass when I quit 'X-Men' because I was working out so much and very muscular and strong.

I couldn't be happier about being a part of ‘Hunger Games’ and to play Katniss. I have a huge responsibility to the fans of this incredible book and I don’t take it lightly. I will give everything I have to these movies and to this role to make it worthy of Suzanne Collins’ masterpiece.

Nothing's sacred anymore. Those girls and I got so close. They were painting me naked every day for months. It was kind of like going to a really bizarre sleepover. It's what you guys imagine we do: One naked girl and seven pairs of hands all over her.

I picked up an issue of Cosmopolitan the other day that had tips for job interviews, because I was like, 'I need to get better at interviews.' The article was basically about how to get someone not to hate you in 20 minutes. Every single thing they told you not to do, I was like, 'I do that every day.'

I had to learn how to chop wood actually - I don't think my dad would have let me go chop wood in the backyard growing up.

I want to play a character I've never been before-a crazy serial killer like Charlize Theron in Monster. I'd love to have to shave my head.

I've never considered failure.

I'm never going to starve myself for a part. I don't want little girls to be like, 'Oh, I want to look like Katniss, so I'm going to skip dinner.' That's something I was really conscious of during training, when you're trying to get your body to look exactly right. I was trying to get my body to look fit and strong-not thin and underfed.

It was like pulling teeth trying to get me to L.A. I hated it for so long, but now I've got this great life here.

I really act for myself. I really love it. I don't think there's a way that you could handle these schedules, all of the actual work that goes into it, if you don't really, really love it.

I find a certain peace by thinking of me in public as sort of an avatar self. You out there can have the avatar me.

I really love acting. I really do. I really just think of myself like a working woman. And I just go from set to set and work. You have to promote a movie; you have to work. People are going to have opinions and it's weirdly very easy to kind of block out the world because you have your own.

My career is one thing in my life that I don't plan.

I take from people all the time. I didn't ever go to acting classes or anything. You can just watch people.

I wasn't pretty enough to play the popular girl, I wasn't mousy enough to be the mousy girl, so I never fit in. And so I'd get close, but I never got anywhere, and it was really painful.

I'd like to think that I have a plan, but you can't really pick what scripts you're going to get or what movie is going to come along.

I know certain roles are important to me. I know that I really want to play them. I know I can do a good job. But I can never put into words why

I have an old soul. I don't know any real-life lingo, so I have to take it from movies.

Everything that we think comes across in our eyes. Our eyes really are the windows to our souls, and that's why at least I can tell when somebody doesn't mean what they're saying - if you just look at them in the eye.

I just love film making; all aspects of it. I love the idea of writing but I just don't feel like I could really do it. I didn't even graduate from school.

I run into grounded people all the time. Given, most of them are behind the camera. But I definitely by no means think I'm the only one.

I adapt to directors, I don't like making directors adapt to me. If I'm with Clint Eastwood then I'll do two takes, if I'm with Fincher I'll do 50 - though the thought of that sounds horrible.

It's so easy to think that this [celebrity] is reality; that people are lining up outside just to write down what I have to say. That's not real; that's weird.

I've got five or six amazing friends that I trust and love, I know exactly who I am and don't care about anything else.

Yeah, when you're making a film, the book is a good tool, but once you have the script and you're making a movie, you have to let go of the book.

I'm the youngest in a family where I didn't have to take responsibility for much.

I do have some kind of gravitational pull towards young characters with more responsibility than they should have.

Sometimes I watch films that I can't believe got made. Especially because I read scripts that are truly incredible, that will never get made. I don't know who is behind those decisions. It's like you just have to doodle something on a page about the underdog who finally gets the girl and the film gets made.

You can't ever let yourself be thrown by a camera. That's never good for an actor. When you're reading the script, you want to work with someone you trust so there's nothing to worry about.

I'm going to do my thing and if you react a certain way - with pity or with anger - that's up to you.

Why would people have confidence in a female director when there are so few?

I never imagined myself as an actor who would be in films. I always only thought of myself being in a play or a musical.

I think the most takes I've ever done would probably be maybe 10, on like a big studio movie where you can do those. But after a while it's like, "It's not gonna get any better, this is what it is," the light's just gonna dull from your eyes. I think the more you do it, the less the actors listen to each other because then you start memorizing the other person's lines and you start getting bored.

Sometimes if a script is based on a book, that's what you should do: represent the book.

There's always male roles I want to play. I'm so annoyed when I watch movies and go, "That could have been played by a woman."

If a woman is determined, she will get what she wants because we are very determined creatures.

I think women can be just as sexist. Women can be misogynistic, too - more so, they have more freedom to do it.

More women have to be in charge of studios, so that they can greenlight films with women.

It's interesting that there's so many different sides of this: Women get frustrated that we don't get paid enough; and then the Republicans or the CEOs that are men say, "Well, it's because women take off time for maternity leave."

My husband is a very present husband, and that has made going to work feel easier. I don't feel guilty. I definitely feel less guilt because I know he's there during breakfast, lunch and supper if I'm not.

I memorize my lines and I show up. I think it's just instinctual, and sometimes it's wrong and the director says, "No, do it this way." And then I can change, because I didn't spend all night practicing it this one way. All I do to get ready for the day is the night before, I read my lines once or twice, memorize them, and then I show up.

There are directors that I want to work with and that I admire. You can love a script, but if it doesn't have a good director, it won't be that.

There's always a backlash in everything that you do, but it's not going to stop or change anything. And it's not only an issue in Hollywood.

When you're asking about roles for men and women, men certainly have a longer shelf life. Men can play the sexy lead for 20 years longer than we can.

Across all fields, women are generally paid 21 percent less than men.

What's so sad is when we're younger, if you have a bad parent, that is normal to you and that's what you think of as healthy.

There are certain times when a certain person says something to me, that will stick with me for a really long time. But I don't remember one person being my idol, or anything like that.

I think the biggest reason that actors are complete a-holes as soon as they become famous is because they forget that this a job. They think that it's about them, and it's not.

I've never like had a system or a program, I always think that I don't know how to act. I'll adapt to any director because I don't really have a set way that I do things. If a director hires me and says, "I want you to get started right now and do this research, this research, this research and I want you to have every line memorized before you ever show up for the first day," then that's what I'll do.

There's this freshness that happens within the first few takes of the actors actually listening to each other and actually really reacting.

I view the director as my boss. I'm the pawn on the chess board. I don't say something to the director easily, because they are my boss.

Whenever I really want a part, I'm not sure what to do. How do I let the director know how obsessed I am and willing to do anything for the movie?

I'm always terrified before every movie because I haven't found her [the character], and I don't get it. [Without acting, I'd have] become a nurse.

It's hard to do, but I think it's really important to go back and watch yourself.

I can't hear myself. I can stare at my double chin all I want, but hearing this androgynous voice, you can't even tell what sex I am.

It was like pulling teeth trying to get me to L.A. I hated it for so long, but now I've got this great life here.

Anybody that makes fun of me, I'm like, 'Yeah, and then I got touched by Hugh Jackman'

Why can't we just be nice? It's like, we grow up, and then we get right back into high school.

It was really impulsive. I was just like, I'm cutting it! And then it was just all gone.

I changed schools a lot when I was in elementary school because some girls were mean. They were less mean in middle school, because I was doing all right; although this one girl gave me invitations to hand out to her birthday party that I wasn't invited to.

Like backstage, I just peed like every 3 seconds. I think yur staff thinks I have diarrhea.

I have the street smarts and survival skills of, like, a poodle.

I was a weirdo. I wasn't picked on or anything. And I wasn't smarter than the other kids; that's not why I didn't fit in. I've always had this weird anxiety. I hated recess. I didn't like field trips. Parties really stressed me out. And I had a very different sense of humour.

"Our first conversation was on the phone. I was in the bathtub, and I had to tell him that I was in the bathtub because I was afraid he would think I was, like, playing in the toilet when he heard water swishing around. [...] Then we had breakfast in Santa Monica, and I spit egg inside of his mouth when I was talking.

I'm a woman that's living in this world of everybody telling everyone how they should look, and what they should be eating and how people can lose this much weight this fast, and it just kind of overwhelms our senses. If I could just make the tiniest bit of difference in getting rid of that because it is so annoying, I would love that.

Better passion and death than any more of these'isms'. No more of the old purpose done up in aspic. Better passion and death.

I really would not call myself a fashion icon. I would call myself somebody who gets dressed by professionals...I would call me more of a monkey.

I was having chest pains. Photoshop made it glamorous.

"I was just like a pathological liar when I was a kid. I think I just wanted to one-up somebody. Somebody would be like, 'Oh, God, my legs hurt.' I'd be like, 'Your legs hurt? I'm getting mine amputated next week.' And that's actually how my mother found out. She came to school and somebody was like, 'God, that's such a shame about Jennifer's legs.' She made me purge. I had to spill out all of my lies. I was like, 'I said that Dad drove a barge, and we were millionaires, and you were pregnant, I had to get my legs amputated, and I spayed cats and dogs on the weekends.' Now I can't lie.

Sometimes I feel like a vampire

Even as far back as when I started acting at 14, I never considered failure.

I just don't like that you can either be ugly and smart or pretty and dumb, or ugly and nice or pretty and mean.

If you don't look like an airbrushed model ... you have to look past it. You look how you look. What are you going to do?

All I need in a relationship is somebody to watch TV with me

I’m a big believer in accepting yourself the way you are and not really worrying about it.

I dress like an old woman in my real life. If you're having conversations with people, you don't want them to remember you as the girl with the tits, You want them to pay attention to what you're saying

My agent called me at 5:30am, and I thought the set of my movie had burned down, or Josh [Hutcherson] had died, or something…I didn’t realize! I was so tired!

I just went to the doctor today, I got a chest X-ray of my lungs and discovered that my breasts are uneven.

Girls see enough of this body that we can't imitate, that we'll never be able to obtain, these unrealistic expectations...it's better to look strong and healthy.

I don't like going out that much. When I'm out, I think about my couch.

We [need to] stop treating each other like that, stop calling each other fat and stop with these unrealistic expectations for women. It's disappointing that the media keeps it alive and fuels that fire.