Jamie Lee Curtis Quotes & Sayings

For years I stopped reading beauty magazines because I couldn't look at one without wanting to blow my brains out. How can those women look so good? — Jamie Lee Curtis

I don't ever want to make taking pictures into another way of saying 'Here I am'. Because I'm as here as I want to be. — Jamie Lee Curtis

[Comedian Jerry Seinfeld was nominated for a Grammy for his spoken-word children's album] Halloween ... Don't Give Up on Me. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I can play rhythm guitar. I know how to hold a guitar and strum it. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I work with The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. I sit proudly as one of only two recovering addicts on their board. — Jamie Lee Curtis

People need things. I don't live a monk's existence, I'm a consumer, but I try to do it to the level that doesn't feel like there's an overabundance of something. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I don't think any woman wants to be known for being beautiful or busty. I think you want to be known for who you are. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I guess I want very much to be recognized for my abilities, for the work I put in, and yet it's still always there - who my parents were. As much as I love my parents, if that was the last thing ever said about me - that I was their daughter - I would be disappointed that my contributions weren't strong enough on their own. — Jamie Lee Curtis

My deal was that they would use a full-length picture of me in my underwear and a full-length picture of me all done up, and they would write about how long it took and how much it cost, because that was the whole point. It was very liberating. — Jamie Lee Curtis

And I was ashamed of myself for feeling like I had to do that in order to look a certain way. I felt misshapen, just not natural anymore. And I think it was a big stimulator of my drug use. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I love performing and pretending - it's very easy for me. — Jamie Lee Curtis

People get real comfortable with their features. Nobody gets comfortable with their hair. Hair trauma. It's the universal thing. — Jamie Lee Curtis

With short hair you have to get a haircut every two or three weeks. And if you're coloring your hair, you have to color it that often. Every time I did it, I felt fraudulent. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I'm never going to be an athlete, never going to be running triathlons - I'm not that person. — Jamie Lee Curtis

The more I like me, the less I want to pretend to be other people. — Jamie Lee Curtis

The parameters are such that I don't get offered a lot of work. I'm sure most directors hear my list of don'ts and say forget it. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Recovery is an acceptance that your life is in shambles and you have to change it. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I barely got out of high school, and I look back at my life often and go, 'Wow, this was awesome!' — Jamie Lee Curtis

The only two questions that need to be asked each day are: Did I live wisely? Did I love well? — Jamie Lee Curtis

I too was a little embarrassed by my recent topless 'scandal' and the subsequent parodies. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I attempted various types of plastic surgery, minutely but enough to stave off this encroaching middle-aged body. And every time I did, something went wrong. I felt misshapen, just not natural any more. — Jamie Lee Curtis

If I'm honest I don't think the world would miss me if I never acted again. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I have a rule: Pretend you're going on a trip for two weeks, and pull what you'd wear on that two-week trip, and get rid of everything else. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I'm one of those people who does a lot of things. I'm lucky. I get up and I have a lot of energy. I have a great work ethic. — Jamie Lee Curtis

All the work built my fame and certainly made me more money, but the toll it took in my home was not good. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I've been happily married to Chris for almost 20 years. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Without my women friends, I wouldn't know anything. They've been my teachers and my mothers. My mother was a wonderful person, but she didn't give me a lot of the stuff I needed to advance myself as an adult woman. I have a really strong group of girlfriends, and we share a lot with one another - the complications of raising children, marriages, personal and physical struggles. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I tried to find a rhythm, and I stopped comparing myself to anybody else. One of the great phrases for me is "Compare and despair." If I compare myself to Kate Middleton or Dame Judi Dench, I'm going to come out at the bottom and be sad. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I thought, while they're up and firm, why not shoot them once or twice. — Jamie Lee Curtis

So, am I friendly with my daughter and her friends? Yes. Am I their friend? No. Does she shut the door? Yes, and I very much support the shut door. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I'm a layperson. I barely got out of high school. I have no business telling people what to do or my big philosophy on life. I'm certainly not going to write any sort of memoir. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I've always put my family first and that's just the way it is. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I've etched out who I am through myriad haircut attempts, outfit attempts, beauty attempts, diet attempts. It's been an evolution. — Jamie Lee Curtis

So, take what's inside you and make big, bold choices. And for those who can't speak for themselves, use bold voices. And make friends and love well, bring art to this place. And make this world better for the whole human race. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I do as much charity work as I can and that my family life will allow. I do believe charity begins at home and the more we focus on our families, the better they will be. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Hollywood is the backdrop of my family, and I know that the movie business is incredibly cruel as you get older. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Pick clothes that you really love. And wear them. And don't make anything "special." If it's being held for something "special," wear it to the market. Wear it every day! — Jamie Lee Curtis

Nowadays, when you make movies, you don't need any lights at all. You have to remember, back in the day, the film stocks that they had were very, very insensitive and they would have these humongous lights and lighting was everything, so everyone looked good. Nowadays with digital film where you don't need any light at all, you could shoot in the [bleep] dark. It makes people not look so good and it makes aging on film much, much harder. — Jamie Lee Curtis

To make new friends you have be willing to put in the time. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Exchange the words 'have to' with 'get to.' Exchange the word 'can't' with 'unwilling. — Jamie Lee Curtis

We look at adoption as a very sacred exchange. It is not done lightly on either side. I would dedicate my life for this child. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I'm a performer. I've just been one since I was a little girl. I used to pretend all the time. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I recommend it to all people: Get down on the floor and look at the world from where the child looks at it. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I was doing a children's book on self-esteem, and I really felt like I wanted to shed the shame I'd been feeling - and maybe make it easier for women my age who had probably felt bad about themselves. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Getting sober just exploded my life. Now I have a much clearer sense of myself and what I can and can't do. I am more successful than I have ever been. I feel very positive where I never did before, and I think that's all a direct result of getting sober. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Well, I could do it for a day, but I wouldn't want to be a teenager again. I really wouldn't. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I'm not sure what fame is for if it isn't to focus on charitable work.quot; — Jamie Lee Curtis

My husband once said he'd never met anybody who walked so fast and ran so slowly. As I said, it's a little hard for me to try new things, and this was me facing a fear that I'd had my whole life. Since I had no experience running, I felt like a failure before I'd even begun. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I have to be careful to get out before I become the grotesque caricature of a hatchet-faced woman with big knockers. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I think happiness comes from self-acceptance. We all try different things, and we find some comfortable sense of who we are. We look at our parents and learn and grow and move on. We change. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Don't judge a book by its cover 'til you've read the book. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I've had a little plastic surgery. I've had a little lipo. I've had a little Botox. And you know what? None of it works. None of it. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I think my capacity to change has given me tremendous happiness, because who I am today I am completely content to be. — Jamie Lee Curtis

If indeed it's a race
Then the chicks do the most
It isn't a brag
Or an estrogen boast
It's the women who've led me
With big open hearts
If not for their love
I'd have failed at the start.
And it's not just the mothers
I speak of them ALL
It's a woman there first
When somebody falls.

The multi of tasking
That's easy to tease
I dare a great man
To try it all, PLEASE!
So this is my shout out
My rallying cry
To women all over
I hold you up high
And though there are others
Who'll think this poem strange
It's the women who plant
The root of big change. — Jamie Lee Curtis

It's not that I'm retired; I just no longer accept acting work. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I respect so much the work that so many women do but that's just not what I do. I have a job where I advertise yogurt that makes you poop and that people love and people tell me about their bowel movements every day. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I actually think there's an incredible amount of self-knowledge that comes with getting older. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I've been going through photos of my mother, looking back on her life and trying to put it into context. Very few people age gracefully enough to be photographed through their aging. — Jamie Lee Curtis

The media nowadays has given the message to adults. Don't try new things, don't look foolish because we will catch you and then broadcast it to the world. I think children don't have that. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I don't have great thighs. I have very big breasts and a soft, fatty little tummy. And I've got back fat. People assume that I'm walking around in little spaghetti-strap dresses. It's insidious - Glam Jamie, the Perfect Jamie, the great figure, blah, blah, blah. And I don't want the unsuspecting 40-year-old women of the world to think that I've got it going on. It's such a fraud. And I'm the one perpetuating it. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I want to be older. I actually think there's an incredible amount of self-knowledge that comes with getting older. I feel way better now than I did when I was 20. I'm stronger, I'm smarter in every way, I'm so much less crazy than I was then. — Jamie Lee Curtis

The biggest lesson I've learned from my children is to look in the mirror at myself, not at them. I've realized that everything I've done has had an impact on them. We have to understand that they are like little paparazzi. They take our picture when we don't want them to and then they show it to us in their behavior. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I'm a human being who lives a flawed, contradictory life. And I have all sorts of problems and all sorts of successes. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I'm uninterested in superheroes. I am only interested in real stories, real people, real connection. — Jamie Lee Curtis

My marriage? Up to now everything's okay. But it's a real marriage - imperfect and very difficult. It's all about people evolving somewhat simultaneously through their lives. I think we've emotionally evolved. — Jamie Lee Curtis

If I were an actress today at the age of 18, I would never make it, because now our young actresses all seem to be very beautiful and very talented right away. — Jamie Lee Curtis

You can't live a truthful life without regret. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I'm age-appropriate. I dress age-appropriately, I choose mates age-appropriately. I'm a big believer in people should act their age. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Life is not supposed to be this calcified experience where you don't change. — Jamie Lee Curtis

My favorite time of the holidays is when the children have torn open their loot and delivered their verdicts and are looking to you for something else ... memories that have nothing to do with things bought. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I am appalled that the term we use to talk about aging is 'anti'. Aging is human evolution in its pure form. Death, taxes and aging ... We are ALL going to age and soften and mellow and transition. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Being a parent is a weird juggling act - and nobody does it right. Everybody does it wrong. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Fifty is a big corner to turn. It used to mean being put out to pasture, but it's the opposite with me. I feel more vibrant; I'm more active than I've ever been. The F-word really is freedom. It's the freedom to have dropped the rock-the rock of addiction, of family, of comparisons with other people. It's being fit and focused and kind of furious. — Jamie Lee Curtis

If I can challenge old ideas about aging, I will feel more and more invigorated. I want to represent this new way. I want to be a new version of the 70-year-old woman. Vital, strong, very physical, very agile. I think that the older I get, the more yoga I'm going to do. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I wasn't the kid who lined up her toys, although when it came to Barbies and that little traveling wardrobe with the drawers and the little shoes, my stuff was always on hangers and the shoes were always in pairs. Things had their places. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Now all of a sudden I'm so less interested in pretending to be a lot of other people, and much more interested in being me. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Actually, the books were never a planned career path. — Jamie Lee Curtis

By the way, food and rent aren't the only things around here that cost money. You sleep on the couch. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Children are paparazzi. They take your picture with their minds when you don't want them to see you at your worst. Trust me, they SEE and HEAR everything. — Jamie Lee Curtis

The system is only as good as the person programming it. If you don't have the follow-through, your system is useless. And by the way, it's that way in parenting; it's that way in marriages. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Pilates is the only exercise program that has changed my body and made me feel great — Jamie Lee Curtis

My mother and stepfather were married 43 years, so I have watched a long marriage. I feel like I had a very good role model for that. And, you know, it's just a number. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I think I felt that I was very well known for my figure and needed to keep that up for my work. And I regret all of it. I felt fraudulent and very shameful. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I've been in showbusiness all my life, but as an actress I have never been overly driven. — Jamie Lee Curtis

My breasts are beautiful, and I gotta tell you, they've gotten a lot of attention for what is relatively short screen time. — Jamie Lee Curtis

It's not unlike the movies for human actors. Once a dog stars in a movie, they don't work very much anymore. It's kind of heartbreaking. — Jamie Lee Curtis

The most rewarding aspect of parenting is seeing my children be authentic. The most rewarding thing for me is to see them do anything that they're proud of. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Because I know I'm an addict, and I know I'm an alcoholic. — Jamie Lee Curtis

My husband and I are very different. Our company is called Syzygy Industries, which can mean a pair of opposites. And that's exactly what we are. Yet there is obviously a very strong pull toward each other. — Jamie Lee Curtis

We are all born worthy. Worthy of love, worthy of success. — Jamie Lee Curtis

The challenging part of parenting for me is to make sure that an individual person is an individual and not some sort of cookie-cutter version of me. At the same time, I want to make sure that I impart my sense of the world as an adult. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I have very short hair. It's the only cute haircut I think I've ever had. — Jamie Lee Curtis

The same way that mid century modern architecture was in the 50s, I want to be as a human being. New. Different. Challenging the old. Function over frivolity. Clean living. Clean lines. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I'm not a prophet. I'm not a teacher. I have no degrees. My degree is from the University of Life. — Jamie Lee Curtis

I used to dream of being normal. For me, if Kirk Douglas walked into the house, that was normal. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Being an actor, you are recognized for being somebody else, whereas these books are distilled from me. — Jamie Lee Curtis

We sit at our consoles and play "Gears of War", but we don't see images from war. We don't turn on the news and see the evidence of war, the result of war. Maybe twice a year, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, we'll go out, we'll hang our flags, we'll try to inculcate in our children some sense of national honor for the fallen. But really, we don't see it. We just don't see the pictures. There's no drive-by on the freeway of death up close. So we don't really see bravery. — Jamie Lee Curtis

The dog actors and the relationship they have with their trainers is one of the most beautiful things I've ever watched happen in front of me. — Jamie Lee Curtis

It was during a cosmetic procedure that I first had painkillers. — Jamie Lee Curtis

My kids are not interested in anything I do. And I mean that not in any dis to my children or dis to me. My kids have their own life, they could give a sh*t what I do. — Jamie Lee Curtis