Jodie Foster Quotes

Part of me longs to do a job where there's not a gray area.

It's an interesting combination: Having a great fear of being alone, and having a desperate need for solitude and the solitary experience. That's always been a tug of war for me.

I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago, back in the stone age.

Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.

There is nothing more beautiful than finding your course as you believe you bob aimlessly in the current. And wouldn't you know that your path was there all along, waiting for you to knock, waiting for you to become. This path does not belong to your parents, your teachers, your leaders, or your lovers. Your path is your character defining itself more and more every day.

When I was growing up, books took me away from my life to a solitary place that didn't feel lonely. They celebrated the outcasts, people who sat on the margins of society contemplating their interiors. . . Books were my cure for a romanticized unhappiness, for the anxiety of impending adulthood. They were all mine, private islands with secret passwords only the worthy could utter.

Being understood is not the most essential thing in life.

I've always had this idea that I wanted movies to make people better not worse.

How could you ask me to believe in God when there's absolutely no evidence that I can see? I do believe in the beauty and the awe-inspiring mystery of the science that's out there that we haven't discovered yet, that there are scientific explanations for phenomena that we call mystical because we don't know any better.

Love and respect are the most important aspects of parenting, and of all relationships.

Let how you live your life stand for something, no matter how small and incidental it may seem.

Privacy above all else. Some day, in the future, people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was.

Knowing what paint a painter uses or having an understanding of where he was in the history of where he came from doesn't hurt your appreciation of the painting.

Ninety-five percent of women's experiences are about being a victim. Or about being an underdog, or having to survive... women didn't go to Vietnam and blow things up. They are not Rambo.

I think Anna and the King is a look at Asia from the Asian perspective, reflecting the Asian experience, which is very rare.

Being an artist is a way of saying, I am here, and this is what I stand for.

I'm an atheist. But I absolutely love religions and the rituals. Even though I don't believe in God. We celebrate pretty much every religion in our family with the kids. They love it, and when they say, 'Are we Jewish?' or 'Are we Catholic?' I say, 'Well, I'm not, but you can choose when you're 18. But isn't this fun that we do seders and the Advent calendar?'

My definition of a friend is somebody who adores you even though they know the things you're most ashamed of.

Look, it's terrible, I know, but weakness really, really bugs me, to the point that if there is a wounded bird on the sidewalk, I look at it and I go: I think I'll just kick it.

The best reason to make a film is that you feel passionately about it.

I didn't have any ambition to produce big mainstream popcorn movies.

People are always surprised when I say that I'm an atheist.

I'm a technician. I don't go for the get-into-the-role stuff. I read the lines and play the scenes.

In the end, winning is sleeping better.

It's very hard for me to get a new car. It's really hard for me to get a new house. It's really hard for me to move on from the things that give me stability.

Otherness is a big thing for me. I'm always drawn to characters that live lives that I couldn't lead.

If I fail, at least I will have failed my way.

I think an artist's responsibility is more complex than people realize.

I'd like to be Dakota Fanning when I get young.

I wish people could get over the hang-up of subtitles, although at the same time, you know, that's kind of why I'm kind of pro dubbing.

Cruelty might be very human, and it might be very cultural, but it's not acceptable.

The movies I made when I was 14 or 15, I have a hard time looking at those. Those were the awkward years. I don't know if anybody can look at something they did when they were 14 and not wince.

I've only been to Dublin once, and I had a great time. I got completely soaked because it was rainy.

I fantasize about having a manual job where I can come home at night, read a book and not feel responsible for what will happen the next day.

But the reason I became, why I wanted to be in the business was because there was Midnight Cowboy.

So, yes, there's nothing I love more than listening to directors talk about their movies.

I am the luckiest filmmaker I know.

In a weird way, that's the beauty of being an actor. You get to live out things that you're afraid of, and you get to say, 'Well, maybe I can get to the end of it and survive it intact and I can be the hero of my own story.' It's kind of a way of exorcising fear.

I'd like to work more as a director. It's distracting being an actor, because - there's a lot of reasons. You find out you're going to work about six months before you start shooting, and then there's prep and there's post afterward, and there's stuff to do, and then suddenly you've gone a year without directing. There's a part of me that has to not be tempted by that in order to commit more to the directing. Honestly, the big reason for me to act is to observe other directors and learn from them. That seems to be the biggest draw.

I think "destiny" is just a fancy word for a psychological pattern.

I wish that I spoke more languages. I speak a couple languages, but not well enough to really dub myself. French is really the only one, and it's a difficult thing.

I don't know why people think child actresses in particular are screwed up. I see kids everywhere who are totally bored. I've never been bored a day in my life.

I cannot believe in God when there is no scientific evidence for the existence of a supreme being and creator.

There is no doubt that each of us is born an individual. Why is it then that so many of us die carbon copies?

I have, in some ways, saved characters that have been marginalized by society by playing them - and having them still have dignity and still survive, still get through it.

By the first week of shooting, you know exactly where your film is heading based on the psychology of your director.

I'd always need a creative outlet. But sometimes, I do fantasize what my life would be like if I weren't famous.

I prefer to commit 100 per cent to a movie and make fewer films, because it takes over your life.

When I think about what part of my college experience came back in my work experience, I feel like it was learning how to read deeper, learning how to keep filling the movie up with more and more resonance.

~I used to think, What if there's an interesting movie and it conflicts with the boys going to a new school for the first time?... Well, I didn't anticipate that was going to be about a two-second dilemma. I didn't know the choices would be so easy to make.~