Natalie Portman Quotations

Smart women love smart men more than smart men love smart women.

Cute is when a person's personality shines through their looks. Like in the way they walk, every time you see them you just want to run up and hug them.

I always think the most romantic books or films are the ones where the romance doesn't happen, because it makes your heart ache so much watching it.

I tend to lean toward strong female stories. I want to make things that don't already exist out there.

I love milk so much! I make a point of drinking a glass of milk every day. So now anyone who did those milk ads with the milk mustaches, they're my heroes.

I am not someone who sacrifice all for the cinema, my life will be always more important.

I don't think I've ever been in love, I'm sure I will be some day. I've had enormous crushes, although I've never been into the Brad Pitt thing.

I'm a Gemini, so I change my mind every day.

When a guy tells me I'm cute, it's not something desirable. Cute is more like what you want your pet to be.

I was definitely different from the other kids... I was more ambitious. I knew what I liked and what I wanted, and I worked really hard. I was a very serious kid.

Going to a party, for me, is as much a learning experience as, you know, sitting in a lecture.

I think all girls in the world wish they were a Parisian girl - that sort of effortless chic confidence and comfort in their own skin.

Jasmine is just the most delicate and beautiful scent.

It's always strange being a kid on the set, because you're treated like an equal when you're working. But then when you break, the other actors go back to their trailers to take naps and drink beer, and I have to, like, go do school.

I loved school so much that most of my classmates considered me a dork.

I don't mean to criticize anyone in any way that I wouldn't criticize myself. I think people should have fun, and have a good time, and enjoy the luck that we have to be lazy and dwell in consumerism. But I think that it's a balance. And our job as actors is empathy.

I don't love studying. I hate studying. I like learning. Learning is beautiful.

I was, like, a total cliched '80s child. I had Barbies, obviously, as well as My Little Ponies and Cabbage Patch Kids, but I used to destroy them. I used to draw all over their faces and cut off their hair.

I don't have a normal job, so I really appreciate having friends who are writers and artists. It's fun to have a group of people you can call in the middle of the day to go for a hike.

I'm going to college. I don't care if it ruins my career. I'd rather be smart than a movie star.

My dad's a doctor, and when I was 8, I went to one of his medical conferences where they were demonstrating laser surgery on a chicken. I was so mad that a chicken had to die, I never ate meat again.

If you're an actress or a musician, everyone thinks you're hot

There's so much else to do in the world. To just be interested in doing films would limit my life.

I want every version of a woman and a man to be possible. I want women and men to be able to be full-time parents or full-time working people or any combination of the two.

When I was in nursery school, the teachers asked me, y'know, 'What does your dad do for a living?' So I said 'He helps women get pregnant!' They called my mom and they were like, 'What exactly does your husband do?'

Young actors often don't think of the consequences of doing nudity or sex scenes. They want the role so badly that they agree to be exploited, and then end up embarrassing family, friends, and even strangers.

I was really excited to get to shave my head - it's something I'd wanted to do for a while and now I had a good excuse. It was nice to shed that level of vanity.

Obviously it's much easier to say that you're going to follow your passions when you're financially secure, but at least we can take solace in the fact that we now have the time to pursue the things that we really want to pursue because now the option of doing things just for the money isn't necessarily there.

I don't know if acting is what I want to do for the rest of my life, it's just what I've, you know, ended up doing when I was little, and I've kinda grown up with it.

Ninety per cent of how you learn is watching great people. When you are surrounded by good actors it lifts your performance.

I'm afraid of everything. But maybe when you're afraid of everything, it sort of seems like you're scared of nothing.

Awards are so unnecessary because I think we get so much out of our work just by doing it. The work is a reward in itself.

You know, I get much more Jewish in Israel because I like the way that religion is done there.

There's always pressure, from other people and yourself. If you're happy with the looks you're born with, then what are you going to do your whole life? We keep thinking up new things and finding better ways of doing things because we're not happy with what we're given.

I always ask myself, would I want someone to do something that wasn't comfortable for them just to please me? And the answer is no.

I'm not convinced about marriage. Divorce is so easy, and that fact that gay people are not allowed to marry takes much of the meaning out of it. Committing yourself to one person is sacred.

I'm always on the phone because I'm usually not with the people I want to be with.

Breast implants gross me out. I don't think they're attractive at all.

I think school is so much harder than real life. People are so much more accepting when they are adults.

The best part about being friends with your parents is that no matter what you do, they have to keep loving you.

They tell me: 'OK, this is where we're going to push up your cleavage,' and I'm like, 'What cleavage?'

A movie about a weak, vulnerable woman can be feminist if it shows a real person that we can empathize with.

I grew up in the classic American-Jewish suburbia, which has a whole different sense of what it means to be Jewish than anywhere else in the world.

I like acting for now. But after seeing Apollo 13, what I really want to do is to be an astronaut. I'm dying to go to a space camp next summer!

I remember how to be a person by being around them.

My father has a general rule. He says if I haven't done it in real life I shouldn't do it on-screen.

I've stood up to producers before, and even a director. I saw them being abusive. A lot of people on the set are scared to say stuff when they're not being treated right.

Where I live, nobody who's fourteen is having sex and doing major drugs. And I think if you see it in the movies, you may be influenced by it. I think it's so important to preserve your innocence.

I usually dress very casual. Whenever I go out with my friends, I'm always like, 'Can't I just wear sweatpants?'

When I was 7 years old, I put on shows for everyone at my grandpa's funeral. I was always the little entertainer.

I was really into dancing, taking six classes a week, and my real dream was to be in a Broadway show.

I remember as a kid being really scared of the Smurfs.

There are movies where we are interested in seeing people's lives without agreeing with what they're doing.

I don't know who would not classify themselves as a romantic. I think that would be sort of sad.

I speak fluent Hebrew and even dream in Hebrew when we visit there, once or twice a year.

I'd like it if people thought I was Jewish looking.

It scares me to think that one day I'm not going to be in school anymore.

New York is more where art is bought than where art is made.

'Star Wars' hasn't changed my life at all.

I love being a mum, but it's much more intensive work than being an actress - going to work feels like you've got a day off. Not that I want a day off from being a mum; it's just perhaps I had this impression before that mums don't work. But they work more than anyone.

Well, right now, I'm very fascinated with 1920s Berlin. I mean, probably the more interesting thing would be to go to the beginning of civilization or precivilization - like polytheistic times. It would be interesting to see what came before modern religion and culture - what circumstances created the environment or the need for it.

The only place I am recognized all the time is in L.A. and otherwise, it's only about once a day. I feel pretty anonymous.

She's really explaining things to them that they probably knew when they were kids. Now, as they're growing up ... they're starting to analyze everything to death they kind of forget those simple logical things that kids know.

People will think I'm a neo-Nazi or a cancer victim or a lesbian.

I get no say in my weapons, I always get like a blow-dryer. It totally looks like I just came from doing my hair.

As soon as it offended people, we moved, ... We had a very hectic work schedule, so we weren't thinking. We shouldn't have done it.

First of all, they can be enjoyed on a real popcorn level, really simple entertainment where you can go to different planets and be completely transported to a different place. On a deeper level, it's based on mythological elements that are things people really cling to.

Now I know myself, I feel more confident about being more sexual.

This movie asks, when is violence ever justified? And it makes us wary of labels like terrorism. Obviously most people, unless they're Gandhi-like pacifists, can imagine some situation in which violence is a justifiable means to overcome injustice. It makes us realize that it's subjective; you have to agree with the cause in order to justify the violence.

There was one reporter from South Korea that thought the movie was about the oppressive North Korea regime.

It's not really a problem for me. It seems like they take on the same people all the time, unfortunately for them. I've been lucky enough to have been respected by journalists.

I just thought it was amazing the character can go from being afraid of being political because of her experience with her parents to becoming politicized and convinced that violence was a way to express your political ideals.

I really don't want to offend anyone's beliefs or impose anything on anyone and it was mistaken to do it,

I know a famous violinist who told me he can't compose because he knows too many pieces. So, when he starts thinking of a note, an existing piece immediately comes to mind. Just starting out, one of your biggest strengths is not knowing how things are supposed to be.

I'm really good at mini-golf. You know, maybe not big person golf, but little person golf.

It's always interesting to step into the enemy's shoes, and figure out what they're like.

The best thing you can hope for, when you make a movie and you put your soul into it, is that people respond to it well.

I'm not a perfectionist, but I like discipline. I'm obedient, but I'm not a perfectionist. I think it's important to work your hardest and be as kind as possible to everyone you work with. The goal, every day, is keeping focused on that.

Ballet really lends itself to that because there's such a sense of ritual, with wrapping the shoes every day and preparing new shoes for every performance. It's such a process. It's almost religious, in nature.

There are still vestiges of societal limitations on women. I tend to think that has to do with opportunities that are available - it says a lot that it's still sometimes the best opportunity for a woman to be able to advance herself.

Really, really obscene hip-hop. I love it so much. It makes me laugh and then it makes me want to dance.

I get freaked out by pills. Everyone I know is always like, "I'm just going to take a Valium or an Ambien on the plane." But I can't do any of that stuff - it scares me.

I think losing a child is unimaginable. It's every person's worst nightmare. It's unimaginably difficult. It shakes your faith in the world. It tests your optimism.

Love is very much perceived as "I couldn't control myself; it's love." But you can. Everything you do in response is a choice.

Pointe shoes are torture devices. I mean, ballerinas get used to it, but it was definitely a new experience for me. They feel medieval. I was very happy to stop wearing them.

The more money a woman has, the more educated she is, and the more educated she is, the more she knows about how to prevent pregnancy, and also has more reproductive control - she feels a greater ability to say no to a man when she doesn't have to depend on him for money.

I don't want to be a celebrity who's trying to like say, «look at this charity work I'm doing».

The fact that audiences have come away moved, excited, entertained and stimulated by the film is extraordinarily flattering.

Your director is your everything and you devote yourself to them and you want to help create their vision.

I've dealt with a few method actors, and I don't know if should say this, but I think it's a bunch of nonsense. I think it's film acting and you just have to be on when the camera is rolling.

Point shoes are torture devices.

We have so much sex in our media that's disassociated from emotions. We have so much separation between feeling, and the emotional and the physical side of sex. They really do belong together.

I had danced when I was younger, until I was about 12, and I always idealized it, as most young girls do, as the most beautiful art. It's an expression without words.

If you're a person and care about other people - I don't think I have any sort of special understanding or anything, I think any feeling person would experience similar things if given the same opportunities to see the things I've been lucky enough to see and meet the people I've been lucky enough to meet.

I'm trying to use whatever attention is focused on me and divert it to something that really deserves the attention and try and sort of stay out of the way of the rest of the stuff.

I think that most women know what happens that leads you to a point where you're not even looking for intimacy anymore. You're just looking for the physical side of it and not the emotional side of it.

I'm pretty immature and get pretty embarrassed easily. I would check out once in a while certain shots to make sure that I felt OK because sometimes once you see it you realize it is fine.

We live in a small world, and we all are affected by everything that happens everywhere. And to look at it less selfishly, we also need to be grateful for the luck of where we're born and how we ended up where we ended up.

We have so much sex in our media that's disassociated from emotions.

I just stay away from the news and try and find people around me who are doing positive things and look to them.