Jane Fonda Quotes
Actress
I have a confidence about my life that comes from standing tall on my own two feet.
We're not meant to be perfect. It took me a long time to learn that.
It's never too late - never too late to start over, never too late to be happy.
The people who did you wrong or who didn't quite know how to show up, you forgive them. And forgiving them allows you to forgive yourself too.
Instead of drifting along like a leaf in a river, understand who you are and how you come across to people and what kind of an impact you have on the people around you and the community around you and the world, so that when you go out, you can feel you have made a positive difference.
The bond between a parent and child is the primary bond, the foundation for the rest of the child's life. The presence or absence of this bond determines much about the child's resiliency and what kind of adult they will grow up to be.
We cannot always control our thoughts, but we can control our words, and repetition impresses the subconscious, and we are then master of the situation.
You don't learn from successes; you don't learn from awards; you don't learn from celebrity; you only learn from wounds and scars and mistakes and failures. And that's the truth.
Feminism is not just about women; it's about letting all people lead fuller lives.
My love life is wonderful.
A man has every season while a woman only has the right to spring.
One part of wisdom is knowing what you don't need anymore and letting it go.
To be a revolutionary you have to be a human being. You have to care about people who have no power.
But the whole point of liberation is that you get out. Restructure your life. Act by yourself.
The most important thing to do as you age is to stay physically active. Lots of people just throw in the towel if they can't do what they used to do, and that's terrible.
I don't want my wrinkles taken away - I don't want to look like everyone else.
As I started getting older, I realized, 'I'm so happy!' I didn't expect this! I wasn't happy when I was young.
A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.
A mother who is obsessing about being thin and dieting and exercising is not going to be a very good mother.
If the career you have chosen has some unexpected inconvenience, console yourself by reflecting that no career is without them.
I have people in my life who will say, 'Honey, you're trying too hard.' I like being saucy, but I'm 73 and a half. I'm still trying to find my way between matronly and coltishness.
When you can't remember why you're hurt, that's when you're healed.
My childhood was influenced by the roles my father played in his movies. Whether Abraham Lincoln or Tom Joad in the 'Grapes of Wrath,' his characters communicated certain values which I try to carry with me to this day.
I feel like my honesty gives people the freedom to talk about things they wouldn't otherwise.
I'm a very brave person. I can go to North Vietnam, I can challenge my government, but I can't challenge the man I'm with if means I'm going to end up alone.
It's about time we make the well-being of our young people more important than ideology and politics. As a country, we benefit from investing in their future by investing in teen pregnancy prevention.
I'm an assistant storyteller. It's like being a waiter or a gas-station attendant, but I'm waiting on six million people a week, if I'm lucky.
I don't think there's anything more important than making peace before it's too late. And it almost always falls to the child to try to move toward the parent.
I remember saying goodbye to my father the night he left to join the Navy. He didn't have to. He was older than other servicemen and had a family to support but he wanted to be a part of the fight against fascism, not just make movies about it. I admired this about him.
The reality is sobering: in the United States one in three girls will become pregnant before age 20, totaling more than 750,000 girls per year.
People think actresses find public speaking easy, and it's not easy at all; we're used to hiding behind masks.
Telling lies and showing off to get attention are mistakes I made that I don't want my kids to make.
I am blessed beyond reason with women friends.
I was in my mid-40s. I was a bulimic, and I realized if I continue with this addiction of mine, I will not be able to continue doing my life. The older you get the more damage it does; it takes longer to recover from a binge. And it was very hard.
We're still living with the old paradigm of age as an arch. That's the old metaphor: You're born, you peak at midlife and decline into decrepitude.
I'm vain. My arms are thin, but I'm vain about loose flesh. And so I'm careful that what I wear will show off my best parts, which are my waist and my butt.
My mother killed herself when I was 12. I won't complete that relationship. But I can try to understand her.
We can no longer waste time and money. Every day, more than 2,000 girls in America, age 15-19, give birth - in the wealthiest, most educated nation in the world! Neither you nor I should accept this statistic.
Children born to teens have less supportive and stimulating environments, poorer health, lower cognitive development, and worse educational outcomes. Children of teen mothers are at increased risk of being in foster care and becoming teen parents themselves, thereby repeating the cycle.
If we as a nation are to break the cycle of poverty, crime and the growing underclass of young people ill equipped to be productive citizens, we need to not only implement effective programs to prevent teen pregnancy, but we must also help those who have already given birth so that they become effective, nurturing, bonding parents.
I love mistakes because it's the only way you learn.
If you're ever in a situation where you're not getting served or you can't get what you need, just cry.
Some people are surprised that the Republicans are waging a war on women, or that they voted against equal pay for women. I'm not surprised at all. In some ways, it may be a good thing. They're defending the patriarchy, which is a wounded beast! And wounded beasts are always dangerous.
I spent a good deal of time going back over my childhood, my midlife, to try to understand who I was. We're supposed to be complete and whole, and you can't be whole if you're trying to be perfect. Doing a life review helped me get over the disease to please.
I was raised in the '50s. I was taught by my father that how I looked was all that mattered, frankly.
The capacity of young people to persevere, even under the most adverse conditions, never ceases to amaze me.
I was a chameleon, the woman men wanted me to be.
Ted needs someone to be there 100% of the time. He thinks that's love. It's not love - it's babysitting.
If adolescent pregnancy prevention is to become a priority, then our strategy, as advocates, must contain two key elements: civic engagement and education.
All my life I had believed that unless I was perfect I would not be loved.
Through therapy and a lot of thinking and writing my memoirs, I've been able to use my life as a lesson.
I don't want to make a cheap analysis, but when you have, like I did, a father incapable of showing emotion, who spends his life telling you that no one will love you if you aren't perfect, it leaves scars.
I am able to talk about my life in a way that helps other women - and men, but mostly women - understand their own life. I feel real proud of that. And then the fact that my children are okay. You know, you're only as happy as your least happy child. So if your kids aren't okay, you're not good.
I think the Internet and technology in general has changed everything. We can see it overseas even more with the Arab Spring and so forth.
I find that arduous physical labor can jump-start my thought process.
While not impossible, it is especially challenging for teenage parents to develop bonds with their children. A high percent of them were themselves children of teenage parents and have never experienced appropriate parenting.
I was so devastated by my second divorce that I had a nervous breakdown.
Our youth deserve the opportunity to complete their high school and college education, free of early parenthood. Their future children deserve the opportunity to grow up in financially and emotionally stable homes. Our communities benefit from healthy, productive, well-prepared young people.
It's hard for women at my age in Hollywood, but I'm not discouraged.
Emotionality is really easy for me. My father always said that Fondas can cry at a good steak.
The '60s may be idealized in the movie from a cultural point of view, but the decade was all about discord and a big generational split that was very painful.
I know how gratifying it is not only to work in film but to be acknowledged by peers; producing '9 to 5' was an opportunity that I valued precisely because it's so rarely in the hands of women.
I've been accused of being too flexible, too willing to mold myself to men, and that's something I'm constantly working on.
The only thing I have never known is true intimacy with a man. I absolutely wanted to discover that before dying.
I would have given up acting in a minute. I didn't like how it set me apart from other people.
Seek women mentors. If you're a businesswoman, look at the TEDx conferences. There's a lot of businesswomen that speak on there. I find them extremely inspiring.
When I was at the age when you were supposed to be glamorous if you were a movie star, I wasn't.
Our young people are assets to be cultivated and nurtured; let's begin treating them that way.
What we view in the media - and who presents it to us - does so much to determine how we think, how we feel about ourselves, and how we view the world.
I've done four videos for older people under my new brand, Prime Time, and the missing link was yoga. I'm aiming it for older people - people who have never worked out or who are recovering from a surgery and have to start slow. It's easy, you can't get hurt, it's very doable, and I've done it in ten-minute segments.
I took every chance I could to meet with U.S. soldiers. I talked with them and read the books they gave me about the war. I decided I needed to return to my country and join with them - active duty soldiers and Vietnam Veterans in particular - to try and end the war.
I knew that I had to write my memoirs.
I feel like when I was an adolescent, and felt so unworthy of love and so empty, I moved outside of myself.
I always had a penchant for falling in love. Every time I found myself without a mate, I fell into a state of low-sizzling panic.
Think about it: Reducing crime and poverty and ensuring that we have an educated, stable work force has a direct effect on you and me and the future of our country.
I'm not sure that I would have become a Christian if I had continued to live in Hollywood because the notion wouldn't have occurred to me.
Parents are supposed to give the child back to herself with love. If they've got duct tape over their eyes because of narcissism, it doesn't happen.
We are living on average today 34 years longer than our great-grandparents did.
I grew up with a deep belief that wherever our troops fought, they were on the side of the angels.
In my marriages, I'd lost parts of who I was because I was trying to mold myself into what I thought a man wanted me to be.
I see many more men who are feminist, or at least who have learned about life in the context of feminism.
Real love and intimacy can be much more possible when you're older.
I'm now the elder in the position of doling out wisdom and trying to mend fences.
I was always a courageous woman, capable of confronting governments but not men.
I love films that make you feel good when you come out and, in my opinion, there's not enough of them these days.
I think feminism is about the spirit.
I lived in France during the '60s. I was there from the early '60s until 1970, so my view of the '60s is more global. It was a time of tremendous transition, not only for America but for the whole world.
I never was a hippie! I went to India because so many friends like Mia Farrow and the Beatles were going there to discover truth. And so I went and trekked through India by myself, but instead of discovering truth, I wanted to join the Peace Corps.