Jamie Lee Curtis Quotes

“Exchange the words 'have to' with 'get to.' Exchange the word 'can't' with 'unwilling.”

— Jamie Lee Curtis

I'm a tidy, neat person. But I'm not a maniac.

— 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

“I believe that life is hard. That we all are going to walk through things that are hard and challenging, and yet advertising wants us to believe that it's all easy.”

— 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

“It's not that I'm retired; I just no longer accept acting work.”

— Jamie Lee Curtis

“I never represented glam. That's the thing, you'll never see me in the front row of a fashion show. I'm uninterested in it. I find it trivial and banal and boring.”

— Jamie Lee Curtis

Kids are going to try drugs and alcohol; that's part of society.

— 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 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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“Hollywood is the backdrop of my family, and I know that the movie business is incredibly cruel as you get older.”

— 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

“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

“Actually, the books were never a planned career path.”

— 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

“I thought, while they're up and firm, why not shoot them once or twice.”

— 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

I can play rhythm guitar. I know how to hold a guitar and strum it.

— Jamie Lee Curtis

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

— Jamie Lee Curtis

“I love performing and pretending - it's very easy for me.”

— Jamie Lee Curtis

“If I'm honest I don't think the world would miss me if I never acted again.”

— Jamie Lee Curtis

It was during a cosmetic procedure that I first had painkillers.

— 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

“The only two questions that need to be asked each day are: Did I live wisely? Did I love well?”

— 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

“Recovery is an acceptance that your life is in shambles and you have to change it.”

— 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

“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

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

— 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

“We are all born worthy. Worthy of love, worthy of success.”

— 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

“Life is not supposed to be this calcified experience where you don't change.”

— 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

“Being a parent is a weird juggling act - and nobody does it right. Everybody does it wrong.”

— Jamie Lee Curtis

“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 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

“You can't live a truthful life without regret.”

— Jamie Lee Curtis

“Pilates is the only exercise program that has changed my body and made me feel great”

— 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

“By the way, food and rent aren't the only things around here that cost money. You sleep on the couch.”

— 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

“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'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