Winona Ryder Quotes

You can't pay enough money to... cure that feeling of being broken and confused.

You do a movie if it's good and if you want to do it. It doesn't matter if it's small or big or expensive or cheap. If you want to say the words, you're gonna say them. You can't strategize.

I think it's really important to have a life outside of this [movie] business and just be the best person you can be.

I remember realizing, when I did Little Women [1994], that that was the only time girls that age were being written about. It was always boys - from David Copperfield to Lord of the Flies to Holden Caulfield. There were never young women going through adolescence or teen years; there were only little girls.

It's also a question of finding good material and interesting roles. I'm not the only actress out there, and good parts just don't fall into your lap that easily. But I like most of the films I've made recently and so I'm pretty positive about the future.

Most of my wardrobe is vintage, and I've worn dresses to the Oscars that I got for $10.

In America, I don't know how much longer the environment is going to exist. I sort of strongly believe that we're in danger.

No one is banging my door down to be a superhero. I don't know how good I would be. I have low bone density, so I don't know if anyone really wants to put me in a cape and chuck me out a window. But a lot of my friends, who are great actors and who come from film, are doing TV because that's where the opportunities are. For us, it does feel like it's similar to making the movies that we used to make.

I've learned that it's OK to be flawed, that life can be messy, that some days you glide and some days you fall, but most important, that there are no secret answers out there.

There's a scene [in the 1990 film Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael] in my bedroom where I start eating Almond Roca. I was so young. It was before I knew the tricks of moviemaking, and I didn't know you shoot a lot of different angles. I gobbled them and didn't realize I had to keep doing it. So I had to eat 64 Almond Roca that day. I got so sick. In the beginning you're like, 'Ooh, that looks good.' But hours later, no.

I will say, though, that San Francisco is a very friendly city. It's the kind of place where people smile at you and you can strike up conversations on the street, so there's always an adjustment when I come back to New York. If I smile at someone on the street in New York, then they think there's something up - like, "Why is she smiling?"

There's like this great thing that Bette Davis said when someone asked her, "How do you get into Hollywood?" "Take Fountain!"

As an actress, you want to try new things. You don't want to repeat yourself. That becomes more important to you, as you get older.

I feel like I had to learn how to take care of myself and find out what made me happy aside from just making films.

You have good days and bad days, and depression's something that, you know, is always with you.

One of my friends committed suicide when I was in high school, and it's the most tragic thing anybody can go through.

As an actress, you go where the stories are. I don't really care where it's seen, at this point. I just want to tell good stories and do good roles that I haven't done before.

I try to just pay attention to what I'm feeling. If something is scary to me, then that's sometimes a good sign - although, sometimes it's not.

Reverend Hale is so interesting because at first he's like, "Oh, she's got the mark." Then by the end he's like, "You're all crazy."

Somehow I was invited to visit with Audrey Hepburn. I had this afternoon with her, and she gave me a couple things. She was so gracious and everything you would think that she would be.

I think it's really important to have a life and have interests outside of this [movie] business, and not rely on this business to validate you as a human being. If you do that, you're really in a dangerous spot.

A lot of the old movie theaters are closing down now, which is really sad. It's still in the back of my mind.

When you finally accept that it's OK not to have answers and it's OK not to be perfect, you realize that feeling confused is a normal part of what it is to be a human being.

Googling yourself is maybe one of the worst things you can do. I did it once, and someone had to talk me off a ledge.

My parents are awesome, but they're pretty left-wing.

I write pretty much every day, but I don't have any desire to publish anything.

I'm 44 years old. So, it's really great to watch younger generations getting their opportunities, and being there to support them in that.

Sometimes I'll watch a movie, and it's got some big star in it playing a working-class person, and the character is in a grocery store, and you can kind of tell, from just watching the scene, that this actor doesn't do their own shopping. So you have to have some sense of reality.

I remember when I did Little Women, I didn't watch the Katharine Hepburn one over and over, which I thought I would do. Heathers, I was completely obsessed with.

I'm too young to play lawyers. But I've been really lucky because I never got labeled. I never did the John Hughes thing. I did adult movies. I'm not bragging or anything, but I think that I've chosen really good roles. I've played different people and showed that I have a little bit of range.

I love photography and first editions. I have that in my genes. My father was an archivist.

Society makes suicide so romantic. I mean, you watch these TV movies about teen suicide and you want to jump in front of a bus. Because your biggest fantasy is your own funeral. No one will admit to it, but it's true.

I was never strategic really, but back when I was starting out no one cared. In the acting community, box office didn't matter. I really think it was a mistake when they started paying people like $20 million to do a movie because now it's all people think about. Is she worth it? Is he worth it?

I was mid-sentence when the casting director said, "Listen, kid. You should not be an actress. You are not pretty enough. You should go back to wherever you came from and you should go to school. You don't have it." She was very blunt - I honestly think that she thought she was doing me a favor.

That's an aspect of this business which can be very frustrating and aggravating. Most of what is written about you is wrong and so much of what does get printed is often about personal things that you don't want to have other people read about.

I've loved making movies. I feel like I've been so lucky because I've gotten to be in movies that are some of my favorites, regardless of my being in them - like 'Heathers.'

There are actors I know personally, or I've heard them say, "The less known about me, the better, because I just want people to think of me as the character." I think Matt Damon said that recently. He has a point and I think I get that.

I'm not interested in playing the girl that's just there to make the guy, you know, give him a talking to.

I'm not into older guys. To tell you the truth, Richard Gere is not the sexiest man alive, in my book.

In the '80s, I loved the movies of the '70s. Also I remember loving Klute [1971]. I loved Jane Fonda. Actually, I auditioned for the last movie she made before she retired for a while, Stanley and Iris [1990], which Martha Plimpton got.

I was so spoiled in a way. I worked very hard, but there was just a wealth of great roles.

Break-ups are hard for anybody, but it's particularly tough when it's being documented and you see the person's picture everywhere. Most people don't have that added problem when they break up with someone.

I want to be a good person, and a person that people enjoy working with, 'cause I certainly enjoy working with other people.

Even though I never really had to pound the pavement as an actor, I always worked really hard. But, at the same time, I always felt like people thought that I didn't have to struggle even though I was struggling.

I love my job. But all the stuff that comes with it, the thought of being propelled into the limelight again is not something I sit around and fantasize about, certainly. I'd much rather just do my work, and then go home and read my books and watch movies.

I was regarded as the school freak which further reinforced a lot of inhibitions and doubts I had about myself. I was a shy, frightened teenager for a long time.

There was a time when I was 19 when I really, really, really thought I was going crazy. I was exhausted and going through a terrible depression.

That first movie I did, Lucas [1986], was probably the closest to me. And Beetlejuice a little bit, in the sense that I did look like that. All they did was like put a little white powder here.