Carrie Fisher Quotes
Actress
People see me and they squeal like tropical birds or seals stranded on the beach.
Everything is negotiable. Whether or not the negotiation is easy is another thing.
Instant gratification takes too long.
I was street smart, but unfortunately the street was Rodeo Drive.
Two of the saddest words in the English language are, 'What party?' And L.A. is the 'What party?' capital of the world.
There is no point at which you can say, 'Well, I'm successful now. I might as well take a nap.'
I don't think Christmas is necessarily about things. It's about being good to one another, it's about the Christian ethic, it's about kindness.
You get to choose what monsters you want to slay. I'm sorry to say this again, but let's face it - the Force is with you.
I am a spy in the house of me. I report back from the front lines of the battle that is me. I am somewhat nonplused by the event that is my life.
I have two moods. One is Roy, rollicking Roy, the wild ride of a mood. And Pam, sediment Pam, who stands on the shore and sobs... Sometimes the tide is in, sometimes it's out.
I really love the internet. They say chat-rooms are the trailer park of the internet but I find it amazing.
What I always wanna tell young people now: Pay attention. This isn't gonna happen again. Rather than try to understand it as it's going along, have it go along for a while and then understand it.
I went to a doctor and told him I felt normal on acid, that I was a light bulb in a world of moths. That is what the manic state is like.
I am mentally ill. I can say that. I am not ashamed of that. I survived that, I'm still surviving it, but bring it on. Better me than you.
I trust myself. I trust my instincts. I know what I'm gonna do, what I can do, what I can't do. I've been through a lot, and I could go through more, but I hope I don't have to. But if I did, I'd be able to do it. I'm not going to enjoy dying, but there's not much prep for that.
I am a very discreet human when it comes to other people.
If my life wasn't funny, it would just be true, and that's unacceptable.
There were days I could barely struggle into a size 46 or 48, months of larges and XXLs, and endless rounds of leggings with the elastic at the waist stretched to its limit and beyond - topped with the fashion equivalent of a tea cozy. And always black, because I was in mourning for my slimmer self.
I was born on October 21, 1956 in Burbank, California. My father, Eddie Fisher, was a famous singer. My mother, Debbie Reynolds, was a movie star. Her best-known role was in 'Singin' In The Rain.'
I have a mess in my head sometimes, and there's something very satisfying about putting it into words. Certainly it's not something that you're in charge of, necessarily, but writing about it, putting it into your words, can be a very powerful experience.
I did the traditional thing with falling in love with words, reading books and underlining lines I liked and words I didn't know. It was something I always did.
Acting engenders and harbours qualities that are best left way behind in adolescence.
Anything you can do in excess for the wrong reasons is exciting to me.
I have been in 'Star Wars' since I was 20. And they're not just doing some goofy sequel, like, to service the hunger of it. It actually has been thought out and it has integrity and they took it seriously, which they didn't have to do, you know? It's hard to do, given the appetite and the angles from which everybody's coming at it.
It's the most amazing thing to be able to forgive.
We treat beauty like an accomplishment, and that is insane. Everyone in L.A. says, 'Oh, you look good,' and you listen for them to say you've lost weight. It's never 'How are you?' or 'You seem happy!'
Along with aging comes life experience, so in every way that is consistent with even being human, Leia has changed.
I always kept a diary - not a diary like, 'Dear Diary, we got up at 5 A.M., and I wore the weird hair again and that white dress! Hi-yeee!' I'd just write.
Now I say I'm a diarist with an explanation I'll get back to you on. Someday I may try and write in memoir form.
It can't hurt to go to the people you love, whose blood type courses through your veins and whose DNA, from a certain angle, contains many of the same markings as yours. You don't have to take their advice, but let them share their version of solutions to life's difficulties. Good or bad - it could be interesting.
So when I was 24, someone suggested to me that I was bipolar, and I thought that was ridiculous. I just thought he was trying to get out of treating me. But he was also responding to the chaotic nature of my life.
As you get older, the pickings get slimmer, but the people don't.
Mothers are great. They outlast everything. But when they're bad, they're the worst thing that can happen.
I have been Princess Leia exclusively. It's been a part of my life for 40 years.
You can't find any true closeness in Hollywood, because everybody does the fake closeness so well.
The manic end of is a lot of fun.
I think of my body as a side effect of my mind.
Some of my memories will never return. They are lost - along with the crippling feeling of defeat and hopelessness. Not a tremendous price to pay.
I always wrote. I wrote from when I was 12. That was therapeutic for me in those days. I wrote things to get them out of feeling them, and onto paper. So writing in a way saved me, kept me company. I did the traditional thing with falling in love with words, reading books and underlining lines I liked and words I didn't know.
I don't like looking at myself. I have such bad body dysmorphia.
Drugs made me feel more normal.
I'm fine, but I'm bipolar. I'm on seven medications, and I take medication three times a day. This constantly puts me in touch with the illness I have. I'm never quite allowed to be free of that for a day. It's like being a diabetic.
I'm very sane about how crazy I am.
No, as it turns out, I really like being congratulated on my weight loss. I like it so much, it's tragic.
The world of manic depression is a world of bad judgment calls.
I spent a year in a 12-step program, really committed, because I could not believe what had happened - that I might have killed myself.
I waited for my daughter, Billie, to come to me with her troubles - but I'm glad I didn't hold my breath.
Over time, I've paid attention, taken notes and forgotten easily half of everything I've gone through.
Females get hired along procreative lines. After 40, we're kind of cooked.
I fear dying. Anything with pain associated with it, I don't like.
Kevin Smith is a very challenging conversationalist and Jay has many great stories.
I don't want to be thought of as a survivor because you have to continue getting involved in difficult situations to show off that particular gift, and I'm not interested in doing that anymore.
People want me to say that I'm sick of playing Leia and that it ruined my life. If my life was that easy to ruin, it deserved to be ruined.
I was born into big celebrity. It could only diminish.
All of us are looking for an outside ordeal that will internally change us.
Leia follows me like a vague smell.
I watched my parents' fame diminish - as I was getting more conscious, their celebrity was going back down the mountain.
If anything, my mother taught me how to sur-thrive. That's my word for it.
People are still asking me if I knew Star Wars was going to be that big of a hit. Yes, we all knew. The only one who didn't know was George.
I think that the truth is a really stern taskmistress.
I don't want to be a victim.
I'll never be known for my work with boundaries.
There's a line I have that our family was designed more for public than for private. But there are definitely some things that are only mine. I am someone who dreams at night, and you don't know what I'm dreaming.
My father was a joyous, joyous spirit, he really was. He was a hedonist, that was just - he enjoyed life, thrust up to the elbows with it. He was a terrible father. I don't know that he was parented that well.
I have a chemical imbalance that, in its most extreme state, will lead me to a mental hospital.
My mother's career was over at 40 but she was still trying to be everyone's buddy, always smiling for the cameras.
He's a very strange guy, my father. I can't get mad at him because he's so adorable.
You can't find true affection in Hollywood because everyone does the fake affection so well.
I like performing. I like partnering with an audience.
Certainly there are people who like me, but then there are those who don't know me who gossip about me. You can't believe the things I've heard.
I am truly a product of Hollywood in-breeding. When two celebrities mate, someone like me is the result.
I have a harder time eating properly than I do exercising. It's easier for me to add an activity than to deny myself something. And when I do lose the weight, I don't like that it makes me feel good about myself. It's not who I am.
Mistakes are a drag, because you get in the area of regret and self-pity.
I started out doing my mother's nightclub act, and I had stage fright.
My parents had this incredibly vital relationship with an audience, like muscle with blood. This was the main competition I had for my parents' attention: an audience.
I found out when I did the Oprah Winfrey show that there was a cookie jar of me. So she gave it to me. I had no idea prior to that that it even existed.
I enjoy taking jobs that make fun of me - or me as Princess Leia, or me as the writer, or whatever, as some idea.
One of the great things to pretend is that you're not only alright, you're in great shape. Now to have that come true - I've actually gone on stage depressed and that's worked its magic on me, 'cause if I can convince you that I'm alright, then maybe I can convince me.
In the Fifties, my parents were known as 'America's sweethearts'. Their pictures graced the covers of all the newspapers. They were the Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston of their day.
I'm in a business where the only thing that matters is weight and appearance. That is so messed up. They might as well say 'Get younger,' because that's how easy it is.
What I wrote all the time when I was a kid - I don't want to call it 'poetry,' because it wasn't poetry. I was not that kind of a writer. I was a rhymer. I was a fan of Dorothy Parker's, so maybe I wrote poetry to that extent, but my main focus was the humor of it, and word construction, and the slant. Your words, it's a very powerful experience.
I overheard people saying, 'She thinks she's so great because she's Debbie Reynolds' daughter!' And I didn't like it; it made me different from other people, and I wanted to be the same.
She's an immensely powerful woman, and I just admire my mother very much.
It really annoys me that I'm vain, but unfortunately, I haven't been able to discard that tendency.
What I've realized recently is that the difference between me and Mickey Mouse is, there's not a man that can go and say, 'Look, can you get me in any faster? I'm Mickey Mouse.' Whereas I can go in and say, 'Look, could you get me a table faster? I'm Princess Leia.'
I've seen pictures of myself with makeup on, and I look like those women who look like they're wearing makeup so they can look young, and I don't think that's good. They have all these products now called - wait, what's it called, it's my favorite - youth suppressant, or age go away; they don't work.
I knew what show business was, which was why I didn't want in on that action. I saw what happens! You get it, and then you lose it.
You knew how humiliating that is as an experience for celebrities to be less of a celebrity. There's no class to adjust to being less famous, and you don't think you have to worry about it. But you do.
I outlasted my problems.
Writing is a very calming thing for me.
If you claim something, you can own it.
I have been in 'Star Wars' since I was 20.
I think I do overshare. It's my way of trying to understand myself.
Movies are dreams! And they work on you subliminally.
That's why 'Star Wars' is appealing. You watch someone fight the perilous monster.
Even my parents sort of went along with the assumption that they were a good couple, but they probably weren't a very good couple.
I've totally embraced it. I like Princess Leia. I like how she was feisty.
It creates community when you talk about private things.
I've been there for a couple of people when they were dying; it didn't look like fun. But if I was gonna do it, I'd want someone like me around. And I will be there!
She has been more than a mother than me - not much, but definitely more... She's been an unsolicited stylist, interior decorator and marriage counselor... Admittedly, I found it difficult to share my mother with her adoring fans, who treated her like she was part of their family.