Lena Dunham Quotes

I really loved ["The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P" by Adelle Waldman]. It's having a really hot moment. Unlike many hot books, it's actually really wonderful. I tend to have that reaction: I don't want to read it if everyone thinks it's cool. It was a really interesting insight into being young and male. Now that made me feel really thankful for my boyfriend and really thankful because he wasn't like that protagonist, but I know so many people who are like that protagonist.

That's the feeling [of relativity] I always had about [Judy Blume] books which I re-read and re-read and re-read.

I just don't want to be around people who don't hate everything in their life right now.

I deserved kisses. I deserved to be treated like a piece of meat but also respected for my intellect.

I thought about starting a novella club because it seemed less ambitious.

You can't give any exciting speech without misremembering things.

I used to think Twitter was a waste of time and sort of ran counter to my ability to be productive and to write and now Twitter feels like a really cool part of the creative experience.

I don't feel like my work is dependent on my size. I feel like my work is dependent on the fact that I'm an everywoman. I'd be an everywoman if I lost 20 pounds or if I gained 50 pounds, because of my attitude and it's my relationship to the world and the fact that like I have two front teeth that are bigger than the rest of my teeth.

I can play very annoying girl, very lost girl and then all the things in the spectrum between.

I'm not jealous in traditional ways - of boyfriends or babies or bank accounts - but I do covet other women's styles of being.

I also really like to read good books and I don't have enough time to do it. So it's really hard for me to imagine willingly submitting myself to a trilogy of books that I've been told are at the fourth grade reading level which isn't a very nice thing to say but.

Don't put yourself in situations you'd like to run away from. But when you run, run back to yourself.

I think that social networking makes people more connected, yet more distant, so there are people with less ties to real friend groups and less a sense of self.

I've always had a talent for recognizing when I am in a moment worth being nostalgic for.

Mine's [fans] a lot of like weird guys in prison. So I don't need to answer them.

My weight fluctuates depending on my mood and my current devotion to my fitness routine.

I think if you feel like you were born to write, then you probably were.

You have to move so you don't die. You have to move so your brain doesn't atrophy. You have to move so that you look a little bit like a person that you might want to be. There are a thousand reasons why exercise is important, and I've had to find ways to make it sexy for myself.

I was raised on the internet.

Now if you went to someone's house to look for them, you would be a psychopath.

I wanted to be a poet. I had a really romantic idea about what that would mean. My parents knew some poets, and I liked how they dressed and acted, but I didn't really acknowledge that I only liked reading some bits of poetry while I was peeing or something.

I think romantic comedy, when done right, is my favorite genre. It's just a genre that's very human.

There is a sort of backlash of people who feel like you're not representing them accurately, and you want to say as elegantly as you can, "I wasn't trying to represent you I, was just doing what I could do to make being alive easier for me." And if it helped anyone or made them feel comforted in the process then it's the greatest thing you can ask for.

I'm always having to be told to brush my hair.

I didn't drink in the essence of the classroom. I didn't take legible notes or dance all night. I thought I would marry my boyfriend and grow old and sick of him. I thought I would keep my friends, and we'd make different, new memories. None of that happened. Better things happened.

My shape reminds me a lot of my grandmother, whom I was really close to. She died when I was 13, and we have a really similar body type, the squat New England woman who can roll out dough and bring in your lawnmower. That's kind of the vibe of my body, and I'm into it.

sometimes I was so bored that I started arguments just to experience the rush of almost losing him.

At a brunch potluck, I realize that I do, in fact, hate everybody.

My boyfriend's a musician, and I think when he's on stage is the only time he's not worrying. And so that's the reason he keeps doing it is because it gives him that sort of experience of weightlessness that I only get out of being sort of, deep into writing something or really lost in a moment on set, like it's available to me in these select moments through my work.

I think what people really hate is to be caught by surprise by criticism.

The only time I felt like a weird exploiter - even though I knew I wasn't one - was when I was writing a sex scene between me and my adorable co-star [Adam Driver] in which he had to tell me how much he loved my potbelly. It seemed like a weird wish-fulfillment thing, where I'm directing my own fantasy.

My parents were very supportive when I was growing up and have been all the way through.

From what I hear, [ "Fifty Shades of Grey" ] is not a way that I feel like I need to be turned on or like a hole that needs to be filled in me.

I get a lot of unasked for sexual confessions.

I don"t feel like there are a tremendous amount of roles for the size I am.

It'll be taught in homes that it's not okay to make fun of a kid because he's gay or it's not okay to make fun of a girl cause she's fat. But that we have been living for so long in a culture where so many people's parents supported those beliefs that there wasn't any infrastructure for children understanding right and wrong in those situations, if that makes sense.

All my freakouts have been pretty private and directed at family pets and/or people I have been dating for too short a time to freak out at in that way.

Artists themselves are neurotic and fearful people, and you can look at their work and figure out what they're scared of.

I think we all feel that way when we're young we don't think teachers have lives. We don't think therapists have lives. We don't think doctors have lives.

Girls are trained to say, ‘I wrote this, but it’s probably really stupid.’ Well, no, you wouldn’t write a novel if you thought it was really stupid. Men are much more comfortable going, ‘I wrote this book because I have a unique perspective that the world needs to hear.’ Girls are taught from the age of seven that if you get a compliment, you don’t go, ‘Thank you’, you go, ‘No, you’re insane.

You know, I always think of myself as sort of ready for every criticism.

Women want to control other women because they've been controlled themselves. It's a cycle of control. I'm not blaming women for that, but I am saying we're part of a toxic culture that's feeding all of us the same messaging.

I have to remind myself that when you exercise, there is a natural calm that comes from knowing that you did something with your body that day. Actually going and working out makes everything else easier and better.

This could very easily be taken out of context, and I think it's funny now, but I remember looking in the mirror as a kid and, it would be like for an hour at a time, and I'd be like, 'I'm just so beautiful. Everybody is so lucky that they get to look at me.' And of course that changes as you get older, but I may have held on to that little-kid feeling that was me alone in my bathroom.

I never sort of thought of myself as a comedy writer, by nature.

One of my favorite facts about Jason [Benjamin] is that he collects shirts from tattoo parlors. He has a bunch of tattoo parlor T-shirts, but no tattoos. And then he wears, like, vans and jeans. My boyfriend said he looks like a modern Bruce Springsteen, which is a pretty high compliment.

If you're writing, you're starting in private. It can really be this amazing, private, freeing experience. Forget that it's for other people - that comes in later.

I'm always afraid that I'm being unprofessional, yet I continue to sign all my e-mails 'xoxo.'