Carrie Fisher Quotations

There's a line I have that our family was designed more for public than for private. But there are definitely some things that are only mine. I am someone who dreams at night, and you don't know what I'm dreaming.

One of the great things to pretend is that you're not only alright, you're in great shape. Now to have that come true - I've actually gone on stage depressed and that's worked its magic on me, 'cause if I can convince you that I'm alright, then maybe I can convince me.

You can't find any true closeness in Hollywood, because everybody does the fake closeness so well.

I always wrote. I wrote from when I was 12. That was therapeutic for me in those days. I wrote things to get them out of feeling them, and onto paper. So writing in a way saved me, kept me company. I did the traditional thing with falling in love with words, reading books and underlining lines I liked and words I didn't know.

So when I was 24, someone suggested to me that I was bipolar, and I thought that was ridiculous. I just thought he was trying to get out of treating me. But he was also responding to the chaotic nature of my life.

There is no point at which you can say, 'Well, I'm successful now. I might as well take a nap.'

As you get older, the pickings get slimmer, but the people don't.

I don't think Christmas is necessarily about things. It's about being good to one another, it's about the Christian ethic, it's about kindness.

I went to a doctor and told him I felt normal on acid, that I was a light bulb in a world of moths. That is what the manic state is like.

Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

I was street smart, but unfortunately the street was Rodeo Drive.

I am mentally ill. I can say that. I am not ashamed of that. I survived that, I'm still surviving it, but bring it on. Better me than you.

I am a very discreet human when it comes to other people.

I'm fine, but I'm bipolar. I'm on seven medications, and I take medication three times a day. This constantly puts me in touch with the illness I have. I'm never quite allowed to be free of that for a day. It's like being a diabetic.

I really love the internet. They say chat-rooms are the trailer park of the internet but I find it amazing.

I think of my body as a side effect of my mind.

No, as it turns out, I really like being congratulated on my weight loss. I like it so much, it's tragic.

People see me and they squeal like tropical birds or seals stranded on the beach.

Certainly there are people who like me, but then there are those who don't know me who gossip about me. You can't believe the things I've heard.

I have a chemical imbalance that, in its most extreme state, will lead me to a mental hospital.

There were days I could barely struggle into a size 46 or 48, months of larges and XXLs, and endless rounds of leggings with the elastic at the waist stretched to its limit and beyond - topped with the fashion equivalent of a tea cozy. And always black, because I was in mourning for my slimmer self.

I'm very sane about how crazy I am.

You can't find true affection in Hollywood because everyone does the fake affection so well.

I don't want to be thought of as a survivor because you have to continue getting involved in difficult situations to show off that particular gift, and I'm not interested in doing that anymore.

In the Fifties, my parents were known as 'America's sweethearts'. Their pictures graced the covers of all the newspapers. They were the Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston of their day.

Everything is negotiable. Whether or not the negotiation is easy is another thing.

I have a mess in my head sometimes, and there's something very satisfying about putting it into words. Certainly it's not something that you're in charge of, necessarily, but writing about it, putting it into your words, can be a very powerful experience.

Mistakes are a drag, because you get in the area of regret and self-pity.

I have two moods. One is Roy, rollicking Roy, the wild ride of a mood. And Pam, sediment Pam, who stands on the shore and sobs... Sometimes the tide is in, sometimes it's out.

The world of manic depression is a world of bad judgment calls.

I am a spy in the house of me. I report back from the front lines of the battle that is me. I am somewhat nonplused by the event that is my life.

Anything you can do in excess for the wrong reasons is exciting to me.

I enjoy taking jobs that make fun of me - or me as Princess Leia, or me as the writer, or whatever, as some idea.

If anything, my mother taught me how to sur-thrive. That's my word for it.

My mother's career was over at 40 but she was still trying to be everyone's buddy, always smiling for the cameras.

Now I say I'm a diarist with an explanation I'll get back to you on. Someday I may try and write in memoir form.

I did the traditional thing with falling in love with words, reading books and underlining lines I liked and words I didn't know. It was something I always did.

I found out when I did the Oprah Winfrey show that there was a cookie jar of me. So she gave it to me. I had no idea prior to that that it even existed.

Mothers are great. They outlast everything. But when they're bad, they're the worst thing that can happen.

The manic end of is a lot of fun.

He's a very strange guy, my father. I can't get mad at him because he's so adorable.

Females get hired along procreative lines. After 40, we're kind of cooked.

I was born into big celebrity. It could only diminish.

I'll never be known for my work with boundaries.

Acting engenders and harbours qualities that are best left way behind in adolescence.

I am truly a product of Hollywood in-breeding. When two celebrities mate, someone like me is the result.

I started out doing my mother's nightclub act, and I had stage fright.

I think that the truth is a really stern taskmistress.

I was born on October 21, 1956 in Burbank, California. My father, Eddie Fisher, was a famous singer. My mother, Debbie Reynolds, was a movie star. Her best-known role was in 'Singin' In The Rain.'

I like performing. I like partnering with an audience.

I spent a year in a 12-step program, really committed, because I could not believe what had happened - that I might have killed myself.

Kevin Smith is a very challenging conversationalist and Jay has many great stories.

People are still asking me if I knew Star Wars was going to be that big of a hit. Yes, we all knew. The only one who didn't know was George.

Along with aging comes life experience, so in every way that is consistent with even being human, Leia has changed.

I don't like looking at myself. I have such bad body dysmorphia.

I have been Princess Leia exclusively. It's been a part of my life for 40 years.

I knew what show business was, which was why I didn't want in on that action. I saw what happens! You get it, and then you lose it.

I watched my parents' fame diminish - as I was getting more conscious, their celebrity was going back down the mountain.

It really annoys me that I'm vain, but unfortunately, I haven't been able to discard that tendency.

Writing is a very calming thing for me.

My parents had this incredibly vital relationship with an audience, like muscle with blood. This was the main competition I had for my parents' attention: an audience.

My father was a joyous, joyous spirit, he really was. He was a hedonist, that was just - he enjoyed life, thrust up to the elbows with it. He was a terrible father. I don't know that he was parented that well.

I have a harder time eating properly than I do exercising. It's easier for me to add an activity than to deny myself something. And when I do lose the weight, I don't like that it makes me feel good about myself. It's not who I am.

I have been in 'Star Wars' since I was 20. And they're not just doing some goofy sequel, like, to service the hunger of it. It actually has been thought out and it has integrity and they took it seriously, which they didn't have to do, you know? It's hard to do, given the appetite and the angles from which everybody's coming at it.

I'm in a business where the only thing that matters is weight and appearance. That is so messed up. They might as well say 'Get younger,' because that's how easy it is.

I've seen pictures of myself with makeup on, and I look like those women who look like they're wearing makeup so they can look young, and I don't think that's good. They have all these products now called - wait, what's it called, it's my favorite - youth suppressant, or age go away; they don't work.

What I always wanna tell young people now: Pay attention. This isn't gonna happen again. Rather than try to understand it as it's going along, have it go along for a while and then understand it.

You knew how humiliating that is as an experience for celebrities to be less of a celebrity. There's no class to adjust to being less famous, and you don't think you have to worry about it. But you do.

No one says that to you any more really,

I don't know who you are or where you've come from, but from now on you'll do as I say, okay?

I always kept a diary - not a diary like, 'Dear Diary, we got up at 5 A.M., and I wore the weird hair again and that white dress! Hi-yeee!' I'd just write.

We treat beauty like an accomplishment, and that is insane. Everyone in L.A. says, 'Oh, you look good,' and you listen for them to say you've lost weight. It's never 'How are you?' or 'You seem happy!'

I am someone who will rise to an occasion like that. Other occasions can defeat me.

I think that now most people know someone in their family that is coping with something, but there is still a tremendous amount of shame - that one is still regarded as a defective unit ... if only they would pull up their bootstraps - they are only indulging their emotions, everybody's moody, blah, blah, blah.

I don't know about understood. I think that unless you are forced to understand - unless it is an issue of yours - you wouldn't bother to.

I've never been that uncomfortable talking about it. Things come out [in the media] about me. When it's out, it's someone else's version of what's the matter with me. I want it to be my version of what it is. My recourse is to do my version.

I'm in denial in its lesser state. It will take me a second. People around me will notice my mania first. And, my depression.

I was telling some people in my dressing room some of my other stories, my psychotic break, and blah, blah, blah, and no, they kind of look at you and it's just not what they wanted to hear.

Me being an actor was an accident, and not something I wanted to do, because I knew what happened eventually. Yeah, maybe you'd get famous, but then you wouldn't be famous anymore. Then you'd have to scramble to get back to where you were, and chances are, you wouldn't.

I will usually be in denial about that, too, because I really don't like that. Sometimes I will recognize it and sometimes someone will say, "are you okay?" And then you think, "Oh, maybe I'm not."

My life is like a lone, forgotten Q-Tip in the second-to-last drawer.

Ambition is exhausting. It makes you friends with people for the wrong reasons, just like drugs.

I Googled myself without lubricant. I don't recommend it.

You know the bad thing about being a survivor... You keep having to get into difficult situations in order to show off your gift.

I was into pain reduction and mind expansion, but what I've ended up with is pain expansion and mind reduction.

I was born imagining myself with an apron on, with pies cooling on the window sill and babies crying upstairs. I thought that all that stuff would somehow anchor me to the planet, that it was the weight I needed to keep from just flying off into space.

Running for office is the least aerobic of the socially interactive sports ...

The trouble with getting introspective when you're pregnant is that you never know who you might run into.

I'd like to wear my old [cinnamon buns] hairstyle again - but with white hair,

And when you're young you want to fit in. Hell, I still want to fit in with certain humans, but as you get older you get a little more discriminating.

In my opinion, a problem derails your life and an inconvenience is not being able to get a nice seat on the un-derailed train.

I did masses of opiates religiously.

I do believe you're only as sick as your secrets.

As we all know, there is no underwear in space.

What doesn't kill men makes them stronger. What doesn't kill women makes men breakfast.

I feel so agitated all the time, like a hamster in search of a wheel.

Waiting, done at really high speeds, will frequently look like something else.

You're not famous until you're a Pez dispenser.

I'm fond of kissing. It's part of my job. God sent me down to kiss a lot of people.

Sex was for men. Marriage, like lifeboats, was for women and children.