Lauren Graham Quotes

Perspective is the most important thing to have in life.

Belly buttons are cool!

Today is the day you have to start believing in yourself. No one can do it for you anymore.

I must work harder to achieve my goal of not seeking approval from those whose approval I'm not even sure is important to me.

Be truthful, say what you mean and mean what you say, don't ignore the given circumstances.

I have to introduce the part of me that feels like a winner to the part of me convinced I’m a loser, and see if they can’t agree to exist somewhere closer to the middle.

You may be sensitive inside, but what I see on the outside is a soldier.

I definitely wanted to be an actor. I didn't want to be on TV, I didn't want to be famous, I didn't want to be anyone in particular; I just wanted to do it. I see young people now who look at magazines, or American Idol and their goal is to have that lifestyle - to have good handbags, or go out with cute guys from shows, or whatever. But I definitely wanted to be an actor.

I've made out more this season on a family-friendly show than ever in my actual life.

If I had a normal job and had been moving up, I'd be management level now.

Texting is not flirting, if you don't care about me enough to say the words than that's not love, I don't like it!

As I've gotten older, I've gotten more liberal, and my father is increasingly conservative. It's so shocking to me because I always thought we had the same politics. The day I realized we voted for different presidents, I practically fell out of my chair.

Maybe I should sit. Plenty of people use sitting as a way to pass the time.

The best you can hope for is a great collaborator.

The thing you must really do in television is bring yourself to everything you do - you can't try to be anybody else.

Growing up an only child with a single parent is probably why I'm an actor.

I've spent a lot of time wondering, What's going to happen? What's going to happen? I try not to allow myself to do that much anymore. I think ive gotten more comfortable with the unknown.

My mother had lived in London since I was little, so she never got to see my school plays and stuff.

Some people think my father was a spy, because of working for that government agency in Vietnam, but he can't find his car keys, much less keep a national secret.

Moving. Someone said this to me a long time ago, it's bhuddist saying, I think: 'There is no wasted effort'.

It's great to have an acting job in the age of Reality TV.

Over and over in the play my character says, "I'm thirty-two years old," as if that should explain everything that's wrong in her life. I don't know what it's like to be thirty-two, but I can imagine. I imagine she means she's stuck in an in-between time, she's at an age that isn't a milestone but more of a no-man's-land, an age where she's feeling like her hopes are fading.

Personally, all I ever want to be wearing are jeans.

I could never have predicted the invention of streaming, the rerelease of the show Gilmore Girls on Netflix, and that people still wanted to hear about it. I do love how we came back to it, but it was never up to me. It won't be up to me this time, either. If it ended there, I would be sad, but I also like what we did.

If you do have something you love to do, the fun part of the job is no different than what was fun about doing it in high school for no money. I thought there would be some greater reward in succeeding.

The best part of getting to do what you like is just doing it. That doesn't have to do with being famous or even successful or even powerful. I see people in life who are just doing a job and seem to be having a good time. And that's the trick.

I am here to tell you there's nothing in people knowing you. There's actually a loss in that! Really, the reward in life is genuinely the day of work you have. It's not the name you're making for yourself or the clicks and likes - it's such an illusion.

I remember feeling a huge amount of anxiety and worry and pressure. At that point I was headed into acting school. That was 100 percent the only thing I thought I wanted to do. But then I got through my first year of college, and I was, like, humming and rolling around, pretending to be a lion in acting classes at NYU and visiting our classmate Charlie Gregg at Harvard, where he was actually learning things. So I changed my mind: I decided I actually wanted a different kind of education, and that was an incredibly freeing idea.

My biggest goal was - I thought, God, if I could just be a rep company member at the Arena Stage in Washington, D. C. and get to play a bunch of parts in a year! And now in my work everything is about promoting it. It's not about the doing of it! Everything is: You have to sell it, and they ask you to tweet about it or do photo shoots, even for the smallest job. There's an imbalance in terms of what is actually gratifying. The stuff that is gratifying is, like I said, the day of work and the doing of it.

All TV shows are basically part of the same storyline.

There's nothing more important than a good story.

Nobody ever seems to want my advice about serious stuff. People will be like: 'Who made that sweater?' Or 'How did you get your hair so straight?' They don't to come to me for the relationship advice or deep stuff. In fact, my little sister actually hides from me.

I feel real ownership in this show. I feel very invested in it. I care very much about it. I don't feel any more like a hired hand, you know? It's a strange feeling - I feel personally responsible for how the story goes. What happens. What the weaknesses are. And so in a way, some of the changes gave me an opportunity to have a voice in a different way.

I just don't know that a TV show demands a movie ending.

I love TV. I think I'd do a half-hour single-camera comedy.

I would like to be part of a family, however that looks. Family is really important to me.

I've dated people who I thought were going to be a big deal in my life, and I've also spent long periods by myself.

The thing I don't like on television is when somebody does something that makes absolutely no sense just for the shock of it.

I take the no-doughnut pledge, and then I break it.

Well, it's more of a sane life to be part of an ensemble! I find that the work can be more specific too and I have to really make sure I know where I am in the story because I'm not in every scene.

Actors should ACT. Not sell perfume, or write cookbooks.

We're all working hard, but so far away from what we actually want to be doing. We're all peering in at the window of a party we aren't invited to yet, a party we wouldn't know how to dress for, or what kind of conversation to make, even if we came as someone's guest.

Once again, I've been thwarted by the massive difference between my vision of the successful me and the me I'm currently stuck with.

Anyone can smile on their best day. I like to meet a man who can smile on his WORST.

I'd pay more just to hear proper English and have everyone keep their clothes on

I'm nice, and I show up on time.

Writing a memoir isn't particularly interesting to me. I'm not like Ellen [DeGeneres], where I can write, 'Water bottles--they're crazy!' and it's funny.

Like my dad, I have a Christmas party most years. I like to celebrate and see as many people as possible.

I didn't grow up identifying with beauty. I grew up thinking I could be smart and funny - those are the things I got feedback on.

None of my characters have really had jobs.