Top 68 Quotes & Sayings by Jennifer Beals

I'm just talking specifically of women's friendships. If two women go to a bar and they are fighting over men, it makes it much easier for the men. If two women are very close and they act as it makes it very difficult for the men to pull one over on anybody.

I don't think Roger Dodger is really about men. I think it is more about relationships and about how you present yourself, not only to the opposite sex, but to yourself. What lies are you going to tell yourself in order to get through the day?

It doesn't seem as if there's that much of a difference between a big production and a little production, other than you have a smaller space in which to get dressed and you have a shorter waiting time.

Certainly from the rehearsal process with Elizabeth I think it was very clear. Well let me start again. We were initially supposed to be more combative.

I've had some of the best craft services on independent movies, actually, because they get more creative, generally, with a smaller budget. The work is still the same. I didn't really notice the difference other than I was getting dressed behind a curtain, basically.

Making sure that when my child went to school people were enlightened enough not to torture them, you know?

I think that in some ways everybody is like Roger. Everybody thinks that when their friends have a problem, that they know the answer and that it's much easier to analyze the problems of other people than your own.

What is their potential for evil; what is their potential for wickedness? That's the only time that those characters become interesting to watch.

I said, wouldn't it be nice, instead of having these women fight with each other over men, which seems to be more of a cliche, wouldn't it be wonderful if they were the true comrades and it took these men much more time to infiltrate their friendships.

The love scenes that worked, regardless of the director, were the ones where the actors weren't fearful. When somebody was fearful, you could see it right away. It takes you out of the story, and that's to be avoided at all costs.

You can make yourself feel better about yourself if you project your shadow side, if you project your own potential for evil onto someone else. By annihilating them and, therefore, your shadow, you bring yourself into some state of purity or reformation.

Oh, this absolute loneliness and the game - loving to play the game, loving to go and tell stories to men that certainly weren't true, just for the sport of it, just to see how they would react.

By annihilating somebody else in whatever way, then that person feels that they also have the ability to, then, restore the person.

I knew there was something I had to do yesterday. I couldn't remember what it is. I can't figure it out. I know it's a holiday. I know I don't have a meeting. It's very confusing.

I think that the two of them have been doing this for a really long time and it is more like sport. Yes, they would love to find a lasting relationship, but it's not likely to happen the way they are going about it.

I wouldn't want them to feel lonely or outcast ever in any way. And no matter where they were in the world, I'd want them to always feel incredibly confident about who they were and proud.

You automatically are trusting because not only is the person a friend, they are so incredibly gifted that you know someone is going to be able to hit the ball back to you across the net.

My husband does so many romantic things for me, it's absurd.

Oftentimes what happens is that the writer understands one character, but they don't understand the other one, and the other one ends up not being written as well.

When you have to play a character that seems to be a relatively decent person and seems to be like yourself, I think the trick in that kind of character, so that you don't become a cliche, is to find where their weaknesses are.

It became very clear to the director that it would be foolish not to use our friendship. I had tried to talk to him about it because all the relationships in the film are so, not negative, but antagonistic. There's not a lot of love going around.

There was a sense of all the things that go on on the street, particularly in New York, that you are just completely unaware of, that that conversation could be happening at any time. I loved the instability of the camera. It's just an unstable world.

For some people, they may categorize it as "gay love". And for me, I simply see it as love. And there's no corner of the universe where love cannot abide and grow.

It looks like a marathon. And I'm proud that I'm not a DNF (did not finish). I'm not a DNF yet. I just kept going. I think that's been the key is just to keep going and really try to get better and try to be as truthful as I can and hope that good things come my way.

You can have the 'golden rule' - do unto others as you would have others do unto you. But then you take it one step farther - where you just do good unto others, period. Just for the sake of it.

I'm interested when people will stand up for themselves. I'm always interested in that moment when someone decides it's not good enough, and even though it's painful, they're willing to make a change.

[Demystifying lesbian sex for an interviewer] In a way, the sex isn't really that different... From what I can tell, no, not really. All the things that men and women do together, think of everything that men and women do together, women and women can do together. And that makes you realize that sex is just simply about connecting with another person, or about intimacy.

It's been perfect. I can still ride a subway and work with great people. I can't imagine being Julia Roberts. I don't have the fortitude to withstand that kind of attention.

I'm always shocked that gay marriage is such a big deal. You have to realize how precious human life is, when there are tsunamis and mudslides, when there are armies and terrorists - at any moment, you could be gone, and potentially in the most brutal fashion.

In North America, people get a sense that something is really wrong in government and in our culture. There is a corruption, not only in politics, but of spirit as well, when people are so quick to be violent with one another. I think everybody would like to be able to find a solution to make things better. We have the desire to reform inside of us, and we get frustrated because we don't know how to change things, even if it comes to our own behavior. Sometimes you get frustrated because you don't know how to stop that thing that you know is either hurtful to yourself or someone else.

I think science and spirituality are one and the same, I don't think they're really different. The film makes pretty clear that quantum physics is validating all kinds of spiritual teachings.

Love is the greatest light, the brightest torch, and will always be the greatest instrument of change.

[On how she goes about trying to live authentically] Well really listening to my point of view and if I am on a set, say, that doesn't really value a woman's point of view, regardless of how they feel, continuing to give my point of view and try to find a way to be heard and not diminishing myself because other people are diminishing me. Because that, I think, is the worst temptation that, you know, you judge yourself by how others are judging you, and to fall into that trap is to walk into the realm of self-annihilation.

Love is large; love defies limits. People talk about the sanctity of love -- love is by definition sacred. Not some love between some people, but all love between all people.

At any given moment in your life, you have the choice between love and fear. And that's a choice you make. You make the choice of how you react to events.

I would recommend meditating. I think that's the single most important thing that I do. More than stretching, more than the way I eat, there's something about understanding who you truly are. The essence of everyone is so beautiful that it's startling.

My role models are Bettie Page and Mia Kirshner. Every day when Mia comes to work she raises the bar for us all.

Just when you think you know something, it gets turned around and challenged in some way. But those changes are welcome because you end up learning more.

I'm not always really calm, but I try not to get taken away by things that are incredibly transitory.

The ways in which we are similar are far more numerous than the ways in which we are different.

Whether it's that moment in acting when everything is suspended and you're not yourself, or breaking through the veil of a very long run or swim, or hearing my daughter laugh they are all pathways to what I think God must be.

It has been said, "History is written by the victors." I take this to mean we can make ourselves victorious by writing, and then rewriting our own stories. In a country and culture so dominated by media, by the manipulation of words and stories, telling the tales of people whose stories historically have not been told is a radical act and I believe an act that can change the world and help rewrite history.

Inside every woman there is a Kali. [Hindu goddess who morphed into seven hidden beings to win a battle] Do not mistake the exterior for the interior.

Love is the most dangerous thing in the world.

When I was younger, I enjoyed being strong, and I loved it when my heart was very strong, but I think it was also about submitting to the cultural idea that if you're a 22-year-old woman, you have to look a certain way. I'm not into that anymore. But I do appreciate it when my clothes fit.

Women are so often segregated to their sexuality, and how they appear. In fact, there's a lot of talk, even now, I think in most jobs this is true... people will say, when a woman rises to power, they ask, 'who did she sleep with?' You know, it couldn't possibly be about her acumen, it couldn't possibly be about her intelligence. It's got to be about her body, because that's how women get ahead.

We can have the final word on hate, neglect, disease and all the other insidious characters that still script their way into our stories...for now, but not forever.

I hope through The L Word to become an honorary member of the gay tribe. I cherish the thought that some young girl or woman somewhere may one night turn on the television and for the first time ever see her life represented - not as an isolated incident but as a multiplicity. Her overwhelming fear may have been that she might never find her tribe, she might never find love and now she knows that they are both out there waiting for her.

Everything has its cycle. I think it's appropriate for us to be ending now. But the beauty of storytelling, and the beauty of film and television is that it continues on.

There is this incredible, indelible community that has sprung up around the show, a community that gathers in homes and clubs, from Los Angeles to Topeka, Kansas and around the world. A community that, in some places, meets quietly in a lesbian bar that doesn't even exist depending on whom you ask.

Of course, the surest way to free yourself from an existential crisis is through comedy.

[Her message to women and girls of the world] You are more powerful than you can possibly imagine. You are more powerful than you can possibly imagine. And it is incumbent upon you to use that power - not only for yourself, but for everyone else around you.

Being part of The L Word made me realize how much more television can be that what I had experienced in my lifetime in terms of being able to be of service to people. I had so many fans come up to me who were really deeply appreciative of the show and what it had meant for them and their own sense of identity and their own sense of inclusion in our society and in our culture.

Compassion takes imagination.

Giving feels good. It is a form of healing. Not just for you as an individual, but for everyone.

For me, running is about freedom. I find that the freer I feel, the faster I am.

One of the problems is that the notion of cancer has been so normalized. You hear about it so often, and it's not ok... it's not ok to normalize this disease. And with all of the pinkwashing that goes on where companies are selling products based on breast cancer month it's a lovely gesture, but consumers get so used to it that it becomes more normal.

For The Chicago Code, I did some boxing. It makes you stand differently when you know you can punch someone out.

Politics is a lot like sex - if you want something, you have to ask for it, if they're not doing it right you've got to speak up and show them and if you still don't get what you want, then there is nothing wrong with doing it yourself.

When you start projecting on the future - "Oh my God, I gotta do this and I'm not there yet" - well, of course you're not there yet because you're here now. That time will come. I try to stay in the moment as much as I can and find whatever joy I can in that moment, no matter what it is. Then it doesn't feel as stressful.