Quotes

I look back on some of the stuff I wore and I'm so embarrassed. I definitely blame it on this clique of girls I was friends with back then. I've been talked into wearing stuff that I didn't want to wear. Now I like very simple, elegant things, by Oscar de la Renta or [Giorgio Armani].

I'm in love with London. English boys are great. I completely fell in love with it over there.

What's nice about acting is that you're not just left with yourself all the time, but you get to see the world through so many different people's eyes.

Growing up on screen is painful. I have had to go through puberty with millions watching . . . I hope to have a career like Jodie Foster, going from child to adult actress.

If the world were to end tomorrow, I really believe I could say I have lived a full life already--and that I have been extremely lucky.

[on playing "Tracy" in Thirteen (2003)] Once you commit, you commit. You can't hold back. We all knew that the only way we would pull this [movie] off was for everyone to give everything they had. I could not hold back.

Whenever something bad happens, I just always have to tell myself that this is happening for a reason, and I have to be learning something from this and taking something away from this. And you just have to think about the big picture, and you have to remember just how small you are in the grand scheme of things, and that in the long run, you're probably going to be okay. So that's all I kept thinking about...just trying to make the best out of .

Oh God, I worry about everything, such as I'm gonna say something stupid. I'm not good at communicating what's going on in my head.

I just hate all that [show-business mingling]. I just have to come back to reality for a little bit, have a real life. I'm pretty laid-back. I hang out with my friends, read, go to concerts and try and travel as much as I can. I'm not a party girl, I don't eat at the Ivy and I'm not shopping on Rodeo Drive. It's pretty easy to stay out of that if you want to. There are other places. I really like being able to go out anywhere and nobody really cares.

[on her fame] It is a little weird, and I do feel a little bit disoriented sometimes. I'm usually pretty shy around people and pretty private. So yeah, it is a little weird all of a sudden to see yourself everywhere with your tongue hanging out! And a pierced tongue!

I used to not even be able to order pizza on the phone because I was just so shy. I think that's why so much comes out on-screen, because that's my time to let go in a safe place. When you're doing that, it's all written down on paper and it's total fiction.

[on being independent and getting her own home] I'm such a crazy perfectionist, I probably stood in Linens 'n Things looking at the square plates or the round plates for, like, 10 minutes, going, "God, this is a big decision. These are my first plates! What am I going to get? What do I do?!

You get a script that's not very good, and they're offering you millions of dollars, but you think, "Okay, this script is so bad, I won't even do it for a million dollars" . . . And then it gets to #1 at the box office, and people ask, "Don't you regret not doing that?" Not really.

[on translating scripts onto the screen] A script can just be a blueprint, and you've got to go in and build it and color it in and paint it.

[on doing her first nude scene, in Across the Universe (2007)] I won't just take my clothes off for anybody. It has to be the right circumstances. I couldn't have thought of a better way to do it because it wasn't a sex scene. It's a sleeping woman and somebody is singing something, which is one of the most beautiful songs written about a woman, period. And he's singing about you.

[on Across the Universe (2007)] If I go to see a [The Beatles] film, I want it to be weird and artistic and interesting and experimental and psychedelic and dark at times and also beautiful--and that's what this is.

I like to do movies that I don't expect everyone to like. If someone comes up to me and says, "I hated that movie you did", I think, "At least you felt passionate about it. It stuck with you and you had some feeling about it".

I'd love to [make an album], but I've just never met people who didn't want to turn me into some pop diva.

[on Across the Universe (2007) co-star Jim Sturgess] He's the best guy friend I have. I've always hung out with guys, but it's hard to find really good guy relationships that don't get weird. And it never has with us, once.

Falling in love is one of the scariest and hardest things that someone can do, but it's also the most amazing thing that can happen to you.

I've always had a real fascination with Alice in Wonderland and really related to it in some way. And since I was little, people always nicknamed me Alice, even total strangers. I do know I'm always in Wonderland. And I'm definitely just as curious. I don't mind being amongst the mad people, I enjoy it.

[April 2011, Esquire Magazine] I'm into for anything. Meet a nice guy, meet a nice girl.

[on coming out as bisexual] I wanted to wait ... to have enough years under my belt where people knew that it wasn't a phase or anything and I wasn't doing it for attention; this is a part of who I am, and I'm old enough to really know who I am by now.

[I was] Raised half jewish and half christian. But today I practice neither. I am more spiritual than religious.

I was a magician's assistant for a little bit when I was 20, just for fun and to have a break (from acting). No one ever saw my face. It was fun! I love the excitement of the illusion and doing it right so nobody can tell it's a trick.

Sondra Locke directed me in my first film when I was 4 years old. She was fantastic. RIP.