Natalie Portman quotes:

Ninety per cent of how you learn is watching great people. When you are surrounded by good actors it lifts your performance.

Cute is when a person's personality shines through their looks. Like in the way they walk, every time you see them you just want to run up and hug them.

I like acting for now. But after seeing Apollo 13, what I really want to do is to be an astronaut. I'm dying to go to a space camp next summer!

The best part about being friends with your parents is that no matter what you do, they have to keep loving you.

I love milk so much! I make a point of drinking a glass of milk every day. So now anyone who did those milk ads with the milk mustaches, they're my heroes.

There's always pressure, from other people and yourself. If you're happy with the looks you're born with, then what are you going to do your whole life? We keep thinking up new things and finding better ways of doing things because we're not happy with what we're given.

I don't think I've ever been in love, I'm sure I will be some day. I've had enormous crushes, although I've never been into the Brad Pitt thing.

I'm not convinced about marriage. Divorce is so easy, and that fact that gay people are not allowed to marry takes much of the meaning out of it. Committing yourself to one person is sacred.

I'm a Gemini, so I change my mind every day.

When a guy tells me I'm cute, it's not something desirable. Cute is more like what you want your pet to be.

Obviously it's much easier to say that you're going to follow your passions when you're financially secure, but at least we can take solace in the fact that we now have the time to pursue the things that we really want to pursue because now the option of doing things just for the money isn't necessarily there.

Everyone dreams of living in Paris.

Going to a party, for me, is as much a learning experience as, you know, sitting in a lecture.

You know, I get much more Jewish in Israel because I like the way that religion is done there.

My father has a general rule. He says if I haven't done it in real life I shouldn't do it on-screen.

I don't have a normal job, so I really appreciate having friends who are writers and artists. It's fun to have a group of people you can call in the middle of the day to go for a hike.

I think school is so much harder than real life. People are so much more accepting when they are adults.

I wonder how people decided that women were supposed to shave their legs and armpits

When I was in nursery school, the teachers asked me, y'know, 'What does your dad do for a living?' So I said 'He helps women get pregnant!' They called my mom and they were like, 'What exactly does your husband do?'

I've stood up to producers before, and even a director. I saw them being abusive. A lot of people on the set are scared to say stuff when they're not being treated right.

I was really excited to get to shave my head - it's something I'd wanted to do for a while and now I had a good excuse. It was nice to shed that level of vanity.

Young actors often don't think of the consequences of doing nudity or sex scenes. They want the role so badly that they agree to be exploited, and then end up embarrassing family, friends, and even strangers.

I always think the most romantic books or films are the ones where the romance doesn't happen, because it makes your heart ache so much watching it.

I don't love studying. I hate studying. I like learning. Learning is beautiful.

There are movies where we are interested in seeing people's lives without agreeing with what they're doing.

I am not someone who sacrifice all for the cinema, my life will be always more important.

I remember as a kid being really scared of the Smurfs.

I think all girls in the world wish they were a Parisian girl - that sort of effortless chic confidence and comfort in their own skin.

Breast implants gross me out. I don't think they're attractive at all.

I remember how to be a person by being around them.

Awards are so unnecessary because I think we get so much out of our work just by doing it. The work is a reward in itself.

I had danced when I was younger, until I was about 12, and I always idealized it, as most young girls do, as the most beautiful art. It's an expression without words.

One of the most exiting things about being pregnant is that I just am accepting the complete unknown; it's a complete mystery and miracle.

I'd rather be smart than a movie star.

There are still vestiges of societal limitations on women. I tend to think that has to do with opportunities that are available - it says a lot that it's still sometimes the best opportunity for a woman to be able to advance herself.

I was really into dancing, taking six classes a week, and my real dream was to be in a Broadway show.

I was like a total cliched '80s child. I had Barbies, obviously, as well as My Little Ponies and Cabbage Patch Kids, but I used to destroy them. I used to draw all over their faces and cut off their hair.

I usually dress very casual. Whenever I go out with my friends, I'm always like, 'Can't I just wear sweatpants?'

I loved school so much that most of my classmates considered me a dork.

My dad's a doctor, and when I was 8, I went to one of his medical conferences where they were demonstrating laser surgery on a chicken. I was so mad that a chicken had to die, I never ate meat again.

Cute is when your personality shines through your looks.

Cute is when your personality shines through your looks. Like, when you see someone's personality in the way they walk and you just feel like hugging them every time you see them.

Smart women love smart men more than smart men love smart women.

Small loans can transform lives, especially the lives of women and children. The poor can become empowered instead of disenfranchised. Homes can be built, jobs can be created, businesses can be launched, and individuals can feel a sense of worth again.

Where I live, nobody who's fourteen is having sex and doing major drugs. And I think if you see it in the movies, you may be influenced by it. I think it's so important to preserve your innocence.

I'm going to college. I don't care if it ruins my career. I'd rather be smart than a movie star.

When I was 7 years old, I put on shows for everyone at my grandpa's funeral. I was always the little entertainer.

I speak fluent Hebrew and even dream in Hebrew when we visit there, once or twice a year.

I am more a teenager than anyone else I know. One minute I feel really adult and the next minute I say, 'Let's play hide-and-seek.'

I want every version of a woman and a man to be possible. I want women and men to be able to be full-time parents or full-time working people or any combination of the two.

Jasmine is just the most delicate and beautiful scent.

Accept your lack of knowledge and use it as your asset.

If you can't laugh at yourself, life is going to seem a whole lot longer than you'd like.

I think losing a child is unimaginable. It's every person's worst nightmare. It's unimaginably difficult. It shakes your faith in the world. It tests your optimism.

Microcredit is about giving hope.

It's always strange being a kid on the set, because you're treated like an equal when you're working. But then when you break, the other actors go back to their trailers to take naps and drink beer, and I have to, like, go do school.

Social networking is playing a huge role in creating awareness and mobilizing support for all kinds of common interests. What better way to use this remarkable tool than to change the world?

Our generation has the ability and the responsibility to make our ever-more connected world a more hopeful, stable and peaceful place.

When you get older, you realize it's a lot less about your place in the world but your place in you. It's not how everyone views you, but how you view yourself

As I look back on it, I'm glad that I had this false image. I was who everyone else - my parents, my friends, society - wanted me to be. I was a pleaser, someone who wanted to make everyone happy, to not let anyone down. Now, I'm not like that.

I also feel I'm a positive role model by not putting my education on hold.

We live in a violent world, but since the success of films like Pulp Fiction, it seems every movie has some violence in it, and it's now being used as a form of comedy: audiences are now being encouraged to laugh when people get their heads blown off. I just don't like hearing people laugh at violence.

Lying is the most fun a woman can have without taking her clothes off.

I've always tried to stay away from playing Jews. I get like 20 Holocaust scripts a month, but I hate the genre.

I love stoner comedies. I smoked weed in college, but I haven't smoked in years.

I tend to lean toward strong female stories. I want to make things that don't already exist out there.

I grew up in the classic American-Jewish suburbia, which has a whole different sense of what it means to be Jewish than anywhere else in the world.

As I get older, I'm more relaxed and less concerned with what people think of me

I couldn't be anorexic because I like food too much, and I couldn't be bulimic because I hate throwing up too much

I get freaked out by pills. Everyone I know is always like, "I'm just going to take a Valium or an Ambien on the plane." But I can't do any of that stuff - it scares me.

I know a famous violinist who told me he can't compose because he knows too many pieces. So, when he starts thinking of a note, an existing piece immediately comes to mind. Just starting out, one of your biggest strengths is not knowing how things are supposed to be.

When I was growing up, my mom told me every story that was happening to her. Most of the stories that come to me are through a female voice in my head. My stories seem to naturally be about females.

I was definitely different from the other kids... I was more ambitious. I knew what I liked and what I wanted, and I worked really hard. I was a very serious kid.

I don't mean to criticize anyone in any way that I wouldn't criticize myself. I think people should have fun, and have a good time, and enjoy the luck that we have to be lazy and dwell in consumerism. But I think that it's a balance. And our job as actors is empathy.

I was, like, a total cliched '80s child. I had Barbies, obviously, as well as My Little Ponies and Cabbage Patch Kids, but I used to destroy them. I used to draw all over their faces and cut off their hair.

I don't know who would not classify themselves as a romantic. I think that would be sort of sad.

They tell me: 'OK, this is where we're going to push up your cleavage,' and I'm like, 'What cleavage?'

I love being a mum, but it's much more intensive work than being an actress - going to work feels like you've got a day off. Not that I want a day off from being a mum; it's just perhaps I had this impression before that mums don't work. But they work more than anyone.

A movie about a weak, vulnerable woman can be feminist if it shows a real person that we can empathize with.

I'm pretty hard on myself in general.

[Donald] Trump wants to punish women for getting abortions and defund Planned Parenthood.

Actual plans for how we help the economy, how we help the environment, how we help [deal with] violence in our cities. These are things that Hillary Clinton has always brought the conversation back to, when he's gone vulgar and he's gone low.

Actually I want to scare away method actors because it's a pain. It's like, 'Come on, what are you doing? It's not real. What are you doing? Oh, you're really brooding. Okay, good. Go to your trailer. I'll see you in an hour.'

And then there is Cate Blanchett. She is different all the time.

As a director you have to - you don't have the option of saying, "I'm not watching this."

As someone who was born in Israel, you're put in a position of defending Israel because you know how much is at stake.

Ballet really lends itself to that because there's such a sense of ritual, with wrapping the shoes every day and preparing new shoes for every performance. It's such a process. It's almost religious, in nature.

Basically I have, like, five really close friends - girls and guys. I like being friends with both because you can do different things with both.

But I love you I'm totally and completely in love with you and I don't care if you think it's too late. I'm telling you anyway.

By the physicality alone it was evident that we have one person [who] is incredibly smart, incredibly tough, and able to deal with him in a very, very calm and intelligent manner. And [Donald Trump] thought he was on The Jerry Springer Show.

Even [Donald Trump] presence was bullying, was lurking, and was just mainly creepy.

Even my life's not normal because I'm acting, right?

Everyone has to find what is right for them, and it is different for everyone. Eating for me is how you proclaim your beliefs three times a day. That is why all religions have rules about eating. Three times a day, I remind myself that I value life and do not want to cause pain to or kill other living beings. That is why I eat the way I do.

Everything you think of that keeps you occupied is a friend.

Friendship is anything that you get something out of that is very, very important to you. And that's why there are those people who are so close to you that you don't know how you'd live without them. And they are the ones that, even if they do something terrible, you have to keep. Otherwise, you're just going to be lost without them.

Girls have girl/guy relationships because we are expected to be so emotional and sensitive and stuff, and sometimes you just don't feel like being that way.

Grab the good people around you. Don't let them go.

Guys have guy/girl relationships so that they can have their own guy thing plus the sensitive thing with the girl.

Hillary Clinton has a real history of uniting people, of being able to work with both Republicans and Democrats, of trying to fight for people's equal rights. Whereas we really see the polar opposite in her opponent.

Hillary Clinton has really strong plans, in terms of the economy, extending health care even further, making education more affordable, making smart gun law changes to prevent the kind of disasters we've been seeing on a daily basis.

Hillary Clinton is incredibly prepared and smart on all of the issues.

Hillary Clinton is such a formidable candidate.

Hillary Clinton wants to extend the Obamacare rule that healthcare companies cannot discriminate against women and charge them more than men for their healthcare. Donald Trump wants to get rid of Obamacare.

Hillary Clinton wants to push for equal pay and for paid family leave and for better and cheaper childcare.

I always ask myself, would I want someone to do something that wasn't comfortable for them just to please me? And the answer is no.

I always find it a little scary to say that I'm like a character.

I am a very strict vegetarian. ...I just really, really love animals, and I act on my values.

I campaigned for Hillary Clinton when she was in the primaries against [Barack] Obama, actually.

I can sleep a whole day. If no one woke me up, I would sleep for 24 hours. I think it's a combination of my age and my appreciation for sleep. Sleep is so wonderful. Sometimes you can oversleep and feel like you've waster your time, but I think it's one of the bestways to spend your time.

I don't believe in the afterlife. I believe this is it, and I believe it's the best way to live.

I don't know if acting is what I want to do for the rest of my life, it's just what I've, you know, ended up doing when I was little, and I've kinda grown up with it.

I don't know if the scripts are changing so much. I mean, I've been working for almost 25 years and made over 40 films and I worked with my first female director, on a feature,["Planetarium"]. And it's still the only one.

I don't want to be a celebrity who's trying to like say, «look at this charity work I'm doing».

I don't want to sound superficial, but when I go see a movie myself, I'd rather look at Tom Cruise than some shmo with a beer belly

I feel really urgent about this election. This is the first time in my voting life that I feel not only passionate about my candidate, but also that the alternative would be catastrophic. I want to help the best candidate win.

I have nice ears. I have no lobes, which was disappointing for a while, but I've gotten over it and learned to love them. Being lobeless isn't the end of the world

I hear, more than ever, people actively searching for women to direct, actively wanting to finance women's films, which is not to say it is easy, but I think it's been a great instance of how journalism has put pressure on business to be more fair between genders.

I honestly don't even really want to think about it [if Donald Trump wins]; I'd rather focus on how wonderful Hillary Clinton is.

I honestly don't even really want to think about it; I'd rather focus on how wonderful she is. Hillary Clinton is such a formidable candidate. I think we're lucky to have someone as smart and capable and strong as she is wanting to be our president.

I just stay away from the news and try and find people around me who are doing positive things and look to them.