Portia de Rossi Quotations

I love being able to wear dresses and clothes that make me feel feminine and beautiful, and I love the fact that I don't have to all the time; I can wear a tank and jeans.

I ran into Ellen at a photo shoot. She took my breath away. That had never happened to me in my life.

I have to be asked, I guess, but I love the idea of marriage. I think it's beautiful. I'm such a romantic, and I always have been.

My feelings for Ellen overrode all of my fear about being out as a lesbian. I had to be with her, and I just figured I'd deal with the other stuff later.

I'm living by example by continuing on with my career and having a full, rich life, and I am incidentally gay.

I really never stopped thinking about Ellen, because I just haven't felt that kind of energy with anyone in my life.

I didn't choose the fact that I was gay, but I did choose whether to live my life as a gay woman-that was the terrifying thing for me. Especially being a gay actress.

Everyone is their own kind of lesbian. To think there's a certain way to dress or present yourself in the world is just one more stereotype we have to fit into.

I had a hell of a time convincing people I was gay - which was so annoying!

My sexuality is a part of me that I really like. But it's not the totality of me.

When I watched Ellen come out in '97, my jaw was on the floor. I thought, There are some people who break the doors down, hold them open, and some people who walk right through.

In high school I had sex with girls quite a few times. They were straight women who I convinced to jump in the sack with me

I married him for a green card. We had a really great, caring relationship; it just obviously wasn't right for me.

I try to be feminine, yet intellectual and smart at the same time. You don't see enough of that

I want young people to see me and think you can be feminine and smart and successful, all at the same time.

I justified it in so many ways. I had a very, very long and difficult struggle with my sexuality.

I knew that I was gay, I knew it. I just couldn't see myself as a gay woman, even though that's where my heart was.

I love to work. I really enjoy getting up really early and driving downtown. I just really love the process of acting and being on a series.

I never, ever, restrict food, and I will never go on a diet ever again.

People might find me attractive, but it's also my job to prove that I can be intelligent.

When you have the paparazzi hiding in the bushes outside your home, the only thing you can control is how you respond publicly.

Eating disorders are shrouded in secrecy, and there are so many things I felt very ashamed of that I could never talk about. Even though I have fully recovered, there were still things that I needed to go through again and work through.

I saw Ellen and my knees were weak. It was amazing. And it was very hard for me to get her out of my mind after that. Then when I saw her that night, we started talking, and that's that.

When I was anorexic it just seemed like I literally wanted to disappear. And now I would like to reappear

I did a lot of fast talking as a youth; I was pretty good at it. I was never talked into it - I was always the one doing the talking.

I don't even like watching sex scenes in movies. I have a slight prudish side to me.

I have a very, very healthy relationship with food in that I eat whatever I want, whenever I want. I never restrict quantities or types of food.

We must be able to inspire. That's my goal in acting

I've had so many interviews where the last question is, Are you gay? I had to find very creative ways to say that I was gay, but that I wasn't going to talk about it

When I was 15, I changed my name legally. I think it was largely due to my struggle about being gay. Everything just didn't fit, and I was trying to find things I could identify myself with, and it started with my name.

You live with the fear people might find out. Then you actually have the courage to tell people and they go, I don't think you are gay. It's enough to drive you crazy

Oh, I don't have any fans. Personally? I don't have any.

Supermodels are over, and the new picture girl has become the television actress.

The first time I was paparazzi'd, I thought I was being investigated for an insurance claim.

The most important thing for me was to never, ever, ever deny it. But I didn't really have the courage to talk about it. I was thinking, The people who need to know I'm gay know.

Even if I'm hormonal and I feel like I've got a couple pounds of water weight, I will never starve myself, I will never, ever go on a diet.

I stumbled into acting and just loved it. I deferred law school-and I'm still deferred.

I thought, I'm out in my life, that doesn't involve my public life.

I was very sexual from a very young age.

If I was 14 and knew some gay people, I wouldn't nearly have had the struggle I had. Our world is definitely changing

It sounds so trite, but my private life is mine.

If you've looked at all the glamour magazines lately, all the covers are actresses. If they are on those covers, they are going to try to emulate models. That's just the way it is.

Just look at all the awards shows now. It has turned into a catwalk. You have to be wearing a certain designer, a certain dress, and everyone's critiquing.

When I was about 16, I was crazy about this girl. I had a certain amount of money in the bank where I could put a downpayment on a rental, and I went to her with sunflowers.

It's always fun to play the innocent, no matter what you're doing. If you feel like you're doing the right thing, you can get away with a lot comedically. I had definitely missed not having a conscience.

At my high school graduation, I graduated from home school, so it was pregnant teens and gang members. But, when I got on stage, there were kids in the background who all screamed, "Marry me!," very loud.

I'm not quite as limber, but for my peers and my age group, I'm still top notch!

I love body parts, especially hands.

When it’s quiet in my head like this, that’s when the voice doesn’t need to tell me how pathetic I am. I know it in the deepest part of me. When it’s quiet like this, that’s when I truly hate myself.

Normal" isn't an adjective you wish to hear after putting that much effort into making sure it was spectacular.

The theory of objectivism claims that there are certain things that most people in society can agree upon. A model is pretty. A lawyer is smart. Our society is based upon objectivism. It’s how we make rules and why we obey them.

I thought that if I accomplished enough, that somehow I would be let off the hook in the future. Like I didn’t have to keep striving and achieving because I had done that already, and it would add up to being enough.

Women in the postfeminist era, while supposedly strong and commanding and equal to men in every sense, looked weaker and smaller than ever before.

And dieting, I discovered, was another form of disordered eating, just as anorexia and bulimia similarly disrupt the natural order of eating. "Ordered" eating is the practice of eating when you are hungry and ceasing to eat when your brain sends the signal that your stomach is full. ... All people who live their lives on a diet are suffering. If you can accept your natural body weight and not force it to beneath your body's natural, healthy weight, then you can live your life free of dieting, of restriction, of feeling guilty every time you eat a slice of your kid's birthday cake.

My decision not to eat animals anymore was paramount to my growth as a spiritual person. It made me aware of greed and made me more sensitive to cruelty. It made me feel like I was contributing to making the world better and that I was connected to everything around me. I felt like I was part of the whole by respecting every living thing rather than using it and destroying it by living unconsciously. Healing comes from love. And loving every living thing in turn helps you love yourself.

I knew I wasn't attractive, and I was very happy about that. I didn't want to be attractive. I didn't want to attract. As long as no one wanted to be let in, I didn't have to shut anyone out.

I was trying to find a reason for having had to escape from the place that was my home. To convince myself of my choices, I had to make it a place that everyone should want to escape from.

I finally understood that by being on a perpetual diet, I had practiced a "disordered" form of eating my whole life. I restricted when I was hungry and in need of nutrition and binged when I was so grotesquely full I couldn't be comfortable in any position by lying down. Diets that tell people what to eat or when to eat are the practices inbetween. And dieting, I discovered, was another form of disordered eating, just as anorexia and bulimia similarly disrupt the natural order of eating.

She'd tell me how she'd handle the backhanded compliment by smiling and pretending she was receiving a genuine compliment all the while ignoring their attempt to be insulting. After all, it's the way an insult is received that makes it an insult. You can't really give offense unless someone takes it.

I could tell by his expression that once he got over his anger at me for keeping this secret from him, there was nothing left to talk about. He wasn't confused. He didn't need questions answered. He didn't ask why or how or with whom or whether I thought maybe it might just be a phase. He didn't ask who knew and who didn't know or whether I thought it might ruin my career. I was his sister and he didn't care whether I was straight or gay; it simply didn't matter to him.

Shame weighs a lot more than flesh and bone.

I didn't understand that playing roles in any relationship is false and will inevitably lead to the relationship's collapse. No one can be any one thing all the time.

I highly recommend inviting the worst-case scenario into your life.

I had to find a relationship with someone who could simultaneously make me grow up and keep me forever young.

Even when I took first prize, topped the class, won the race, I never really won anything. I was merely avoiding the embarrassment of losing.

You don't have to be emaciated or vomiting to be suffering. All people who live their lives on a diet are suffering.

Healing comes from love. And loving every living thing in turn helps you love yourself.

Being sick allows you to check out of life. Getting well again means you have to check back in. It is absolutely crucial that you feel ready to check back into life because you feel as though something has changed from the time before you were sick. Whatever it was that made you feel insecure, less than, or pressured to live in a way that was uncomfortable to you has to change before you want to go back there and start over.

Thanks so much, everybody, for making gay marriage legal, thank you for everything you've done-I'm just going to walk through that door

Every animal has its own intelligence and sensitivities. They're all lovely, worthwhile, and deserving of our respect.

I'm really attracted to strong women. Let me rephrase that, I'm really attracted to strong female characters.

I would eat 300 calories a day - a lot of Jell-O and no-sugar everything, of course. I was doing Pilates, weight-training, circuit training; over lunch I would run on a treadmill in my dressing room with a fan on my face so I wouldn't sweat my makeup off.

Reality TV now doesn't feel reality TV when it started. The line between reality and fiction is blurred. So many of these people are phony or shallow, in their own right. If you've ever watched any of The Real Housewives, or those types of shows, they're all performing. Even though they're real people, they're performing.

I wondered if that's what aging felt like. That desire and reality were dueling until the day you die, that nobody every got to a place of peace. I had always wanted to get old so I didn't have to care anymore, but I began to think that it would be best just to skip the getting older part and just die.

I began to see myself as someone who can help others understand diversity rather than feeling like a social outcast. Ellen taught me to not care about other people's opinions. She taught me to be truthful. She taught me to be free. I began to live my life in love and complete acceptance. For the first time I had truly accepted myself.

True nobility isn't about being better than anyone else; it's about being better than you used to be.

Most important, in order to find real happiness, you must learn to love yourself for the totality of who you are and not just what you look like.

Restriction generates yearning. You want what you cannot have.

The diet industry is making a lot of money selling us fad diets, nonfat foods full of chemicals, gym memberships, and pills while we lose a piece of our self-esteem every time we fail another diet or neglect to use the gym membership we could barely afford.

And I somehow always felt less lonely when I was completely alone.

If your self-esteem really does depend on how you look you're always going to be insecure. There's no way you can get around it because you are going to age. Even if you get that perfect body you're going to get older and older and older. You can't avid it. So you have to somehow, at some point, take control and sift the focus and decide who you are, what you can contribute to the world, what you do and say, is so much more important than how you look.

Average. It was the worst, most disgusting word in the English language. Nothing meaningful or worthwhile ever came from that word.

Life can take so many twists and turns. You can’t ever count yourself out. Even if you’re really afraid at some point, you can’t think that there’s no room for you to grow and do something good with your life.

There's a fine line between being private and being ashamed.