A Quote by Iris Apfel

I decided when I was 19 that I didn't like all these stereotypes that I was supposed to fit into. I wasn't comfortable and they made me very unhappy. So I tried and I spent a miserable summer, and then I went back to school and said, 'I'm going to do my own thing because I think I have a thing to do. I'm not going to live in anybody else's image because I don't like that.' I felt much better. I didn't do it to rebel against anybody or anything.
I'm not going to be a rebel and offend anybody, but I'm not going to live in somebody else's image.
I'm not scared anymore, I just ... I don't know. I think it's because I saw someone else, someone behind your face, like you'd taken off a mask. It was still you, but it wasn't. And I don't think that person is going to hurt me, or Marci, or anybody else, but ... I guess the thing is that I don't know anything about that person. At all. And that's what scares me more than anything - that there could be two people, so different, and one of them so secret.
On a film set, there are runners who are 19, it's their first job, but to me they're as important as anybody else because if they don't do their job then nobody else can. So I don't think anybody should be treated disrespectfully or as if they're of a lower status.
From very early on in my childhood - four, five years old - I felt alien to the human race. I felt very comfortable with thinking I was from another planet, because I felt disconnected - I was very tall and skinny, and I didn't look like anybody else, I didn't even look like any member of my family.
I just kind of do my own thing, which has made me feel like a better player, a better pro because I'm in control of it. I don't have anybody who is pushing me to do something - I'm pushing myself.
Empty the cup every time and it comes back at twice as full. I developed that attitude when I was very, very young, when I decided I didn't want to be a gangster anymore. Whether it's just shining shoes, I said okay, I'm going to do this better than anybody else did it in my life.
I am an Arsenal player and I don't think about anything else. I'm not going to say no to anybody, nor am I going to say yes to anybody. I did not say that I was going to leave Arsenal to go to Barcelona, because equally Barcelona doesn't want me.
Everybody told us we would never make it. Even friends would say to me, 'Okay this band thing is cool, but seriously, what are you really going to do?' I can't think of anyone who believed in us, and that was fuel for the fire, because the more anybody said I wouldn't do it, the more I was like, 'No, I'm going to do it.'
I don't think I'm very much like anyone else, really. I'm sure there are aspects of other actors that I share, but I don't see anybody else and go, "Damn, they stole my thing." I'm me, and I like that there are people who have an appreciation for that.
I think it is unnatural to think that there is such a thing as a blue-sky, white-clouded happy childhood for anybody. Childhood is a very, very tricky business of surviving it. Because if one thing goes wrong or anything goes wrong, and usually something goes wrong, then you are compromised as a human being. You're going to trip over that for a good part of your life.
I didn't think I was good at anything, didn't do well in school. And then in the third grade, I was going to a public school. And the teacher was putting math problems on the board. And I said to myself - it's amazing how you can remember certain incidents at any age that made an impression - I asked myself why is she putting those up when the answers are obvious. And then I saw it wasn't obvious to anybody else in the class. So I said, "Hey, I'm good at something."
Being an adult, you've already suffered enough from your own mistakes, and the world, to come to this as a humble human being. So it's not like, "I'm going to do the right thing because it advances me," as much as it's like, "I'm going to do the right thing because this puts me closest to the dream I had as a 10-year-old kid."
Be culturally literate, because if you don't have any understanding of the world you live in and the culture you live in, you're not going to express anything to anybody else.
My direction as a person working in film has been to never get comfortable with anything I was doing. At the time that I decided to do action films, people were telling me, "Well, you can't do it. You're not that type. It's not going to work." And so obviously that made me think, "Well, that's not comfortable. Maybe I should try it. What can I do with it?" So I did that, and I'm glad I did it. I'll probably do it again, and I did other kinds of things that seemed like challenges for me, because I like being on the high wire.
Everything I do is intended to make people laugh and think. I just think something is funny, it's not hurting anybody, not stabbing anybody, not shooting anybody, not making anybody watch me perform. There are thousands of comedians, don't come see me because it's not like I hide it.
I never felt comfortable in my own skin, and I feel like I missed out on a lot of high school experiences because I was so worried about where I fit in because I was so confused.
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