110+ Lena Dunham Quotes On Education, Culture And Her

Lena Dunham is an American filmmaker, actress, writer, and producer. She is best known for creating and starring in the HBO series Girls, for which she has received numerous Emmy and Golden Globe Awards. She has also directed several feature films, including Tiny Furniture and the independent film, Creative Nonfiction. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Lena Dunham on life, education, culture.

Top 10 Lena Dunham Quotes

1. Don't wait around for someone else to tell your story. Do it yourself by whatever means necessary.
2. I have work, and then I have a dinner thing. And then I am busy, trying to become who I am.
3. The people accusing me of being productive don't know how hard it is for me to just bend my elbow sometimes.
4. Confidence lets you pull anything off, even Tevas with socks.
5. Survivors are so often re-victimized by a system that demands they prove their purity and innocence.
6. At a brunch potluck, I realize that I do, in fact, hate everybody.
7. But ambition is a funny thing: it creeps in when you least expect it and keeps you moving, even when you think you want to stay put.
8. Enjoy going through life as yourself.
9. My thoughts on body image are simple: if you are being kind to yourself mentally and physically you never have anything to be ashamed for, ever.
10. I'm not jealous in traditional ways - of boyfriends or babies or bank accounts - but I do covet other women's styles of being.

Lena Dunham Short Quotes

• Hell hath no fury like a woman who has accidentally napped.
• Escapism for me can come in the form of someone else's reality.
• I feel prettier with a naked face and ChapStick. But a good haircut makes a huge difference.
• Barbie’s disfigured. It’s fine to play with her just as long as you keep that in mind.
• I seriously consider television to be the people's medium.
• When I was nine, I wrote a vow of celibacy on a piece of paper and ate it.
• I don't want to get married until all gay people can get married.
• It's not brave to do something that doesn't scare you.
• Basically, anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl, I was trying.
• I'm always afraid that I'm being unprofessional, yet I continue to sign all my e-mails 'xoxo.'

Lena Dunham Quotes About Life

You don't need to be flamboyant in your life to be flamboyant in your work. — Lena Dunham

Don't put yourself in situations you'd like to run away from. But when you run, run back to yourself. — Lena Dunham

Here's who it's okay to share a bed with: . . . A heating pad. An empty bag of pita chips. The love of your life. — Lena Dunham

I think about my best friendship - which the Marnie-Hannah friendship in Girls is based on - as like a great romance of my young life. — Lena Dunham

I would be a horrible girlfriend at this point in my life, because I’m both needy and unavailable. — Lena Dunham

For me, my life goal is to be in a position where I can wear pajamas 24 hours a day. That's what makes me happy. — Lena Dunham

I've always been someone in [childhood] period of my life sort of the pains and anxieties of being young are the things that have really stuck with me. — Lena Dunham

I would rather spend my entire life doing nothing than have my name attached to something mediocre. — Lena Dunham

It's a very specific body. Even great reviews will be like: chubby, portly, overweight. . . . Sometimes I'm like, 'Ugh, how did I make myself the guinea pig for this?' But on the other hand, hating my body has not been my cross to bear in this life. Which I feel very lucky about. — Lena Dunham

The current economic climate means getting out of college is no guarantee of getting a job, and no guarantee of a satisfying work life. My Dad feels that this is the first generation of Americans that expects that there children will have a harder time then they did. That's a fascinating concept. — Lena Dunham

Lena Dunham Quotes About Love

There's a certain grace to having your heart broken. — Lena Dunham

When we, as young women, are given the space to read, the act becomes a happy, private corner we can return to for the rest of our lives. We develop this love of reading by turning to stories that speak to the most special, secret parts of us. — Lena Dunham

You get reactions and you connect to people and I love Twitter. — Lena Dunham

I thought about ["Summer Sisters" ] so often as I was writing about these female characters who love each other and hated each other and were sort of in love with each other. — Lena Dunham

What a snarky jerk. (Obviously, I later slept with him.) — Lena Dunham

We both followed our hearts and had no choice but to hurt each other deeply. — Lena Dunham

It's okay to change your mind. About a feeling, a person, a promise of love. — Lena Dunham

Guys warning girls not to fall in love with them is so truly douchey that it should have a higher success rate. — Lena Dunham

I'd always loved movies, but it wasn't some sort of desperate love of celluloid. It was literally like, "I want to write things, and I want people to see them more." — Lena Dunham

I love what I do, I love every minute of it. — Lena Dunham

Lena Dunham Quotes About Writing

I used to think Twitter was a waste of time and sort of ran counter to my ability to be productive and to write and now Twitter feels like a really cool part of the creative experience. — Lena Dunham

I write at all different times. I write in my bed, I write at the table. I need to get it together. I'm working on a book and working, and just jam it in whenever it makes sense. — Lena Dunham

I started writing plays, but the fact that plays don't last forever was too much for me to bear. — Lena Dunham

I would go to work from 9 to 6, go home, nap for two hours, then write from 8 to 2 a.m. — Lena Dunham

The parts I enjoy playing aren't really available to me. So I have to write them. — Lena Dunham

There is no way that my mother hasn't influenced my career. She's my first critic. She's my best critic. She has the best instincts from writing to style to editing, to the visual elements of my career. — Lena Dunham

Lena Dunham Famous Quotes And Sayings

I can never be who I was. I can simply watch her with sympathy, understanding, and some measure of awe. There she goes, backpack on, headed for the subway or the airport. She did her best with her eyeliner. She learned a new word she wants to try out on you. She is ambling along. She is looking for it. — Lena Dunham

Women saying "I'm not a feminist" is my greatest pet peeve. Do you believe that women should be paid the same for doing the same jobs? Do you believe that women should be allowed to leave the house? Do you think that women and men both deserve equal rights? Great, then you're a feminist. — Lena Dunham

Women want to control other women because they've been controlled themselves. It's a cycle of control. I'm not blaming women for that, but I am saying we're part of a toxic culture that's feeding all of us the same messaging. — Lena Dunham

I've been a little haphazard about how nude I get, and the only thing that keeps me from getting anxious about it is that I've had complete control over it. — Lena Dunham

The idea of being a feminist-so many women have come to this idea of it being anti-male and not able to connect with the opposite sex-but what feminism is about is equality and human rights. For me that is just an essential part of my identity. I hope [Girls] contributes to a continuance of feminist dialogue — Lena Dunham

But I am a girl with a keen interest in having it all, and what follows are hopeful dispatches from the frontlines of that struggle. — Lena Dunham

My sister is bold, independent, and not afraid to wear overalls. Some of her first words as a child were "that's not fair," and she's been committed to social justice ever since. She's my hero. — Lena Dunham

When someone shows you how little you mean to them and you keep coming back for more, before you know it you start to mean less to yourself. — Lena Dunham

The end never comes when you think it will. It's always ten steps past the worst moment, then a weird turn to the left. — Lena Dunham

I should do the things that make me feel cool and smart. As I get older, I'm realizing more and more that it doesn't really matter if I'm good at it, it just matters that I try. My own effort, my own willingness, are becoming what's appealing to me. — Lena Dunham

I deserved kisses. I deserved to be treated like a piece of meat but also respected for my intellect. — Lena Dunham

Throughout the day I often ask myself, Could I fall asleep right now? and the answer is always a resounding yes. — Lena Dunham

I think of my body as a tool to do the stuff I need to do, but not the be all end all of my existence. — Lena Dunham

Once, my little sister was walking down the street in her thick black glasses, and a homeless man muttered, Talk nerdy to me. — Lena Dunham

You’ve learned a new rule and it’s simple: don’t put yourself in situations you’d like to run away from. But when you run, run back to yourself, like that bunny in Runaway Bunny runs to its mother, but you are the mother and you’ll see that later and be very, very proud. — Lena Dunham

It's not that I don't want to hear about that [blow job] stuff, I just want to hear about it immediately. And I want to hear about it on more comfortable terms. — Lena Dunham

My dad once told me that he would rather I had an old boyfriend than a tall boyfriend. I don't know why, I think he's just feels stressed by... He' not that short I just think the idea of a really tall guy is super anxiety producing to him. And now I'm with neither old guy nor a very tall guy. So everything has worked out perfectly. — Lena Dunham

I seriously consider television to be the people's medium. Like the idea of seeing your parents naked or having somebody go down on you and worrying about whether you smell, or worrying about whether your body is weird or what goes across the face of a person who's supposed to be experiencing pleasure but isn't - those are things I'd love to normalize on TV. — Lena Dunham

Artists themselves are neurotic and fearful people, and you can look at their work and figure out what they're scared of. — Lena Dunham

I think we all feel that way when we're young we don't think teachers have lives. We don't think therapists have lives. We don't think doctors have lives. — Lena Dunham

The thing that's so hard about being a kid is you don't have enough knowledge to explain things yourself. — Lena Dunham

Luxury is nice, but creativity is nicer. — Lena Dunham

It is really funny how even cool chicks are sort of like, 'Our moms covered that feminism thing and now we're living in a post-that world,' when that just isn't true. — Lena Dunham

It completely sickens me what our culture is doing to women. Last week I wore a big top and little shorts and a bunch of stuff came out saying I was without pants. 'The No-Pants Look,' it said. And I didn't go out without pants, I had shorts on... If Olivia Wilde had gone to a party with a big silky top and little shorts she might have been told her outfit was cute... What it was really: 'Why did you show us your thighs?' — Lena Dunham

I value my health and my happiness. And I've realized exercise can give me both of those things. — Lena Dunham

I refresh Twitter as thoughtlessly as some twirl their hair. — Lena Dunham

I wanted to be a poet. I had a really romantic idea about what that would mean. My parents knew some poets, and I liked how they dressed and acted, but I didn't really acknowledge that I only liked reading some bits of poetry while I was peeing or something. — Lena Dunham

I've always had a talent for recognizing when I am in a moment worth being nostalgic for. — Lena Dunham

I still go to a party and say something embarrassing to someone, and then write them a weird e-mail about it the next day, and then write them a text because I think they didn't get the e-mail. No matter what happens with your level of success, you still have to deal with all the baggage that is yourself. — Lena Dunham

The way in which you share your body must be a CHOICE. Support these women and do not look at these pictures. — Lena Dunham

We're the last f - ing people who have a f - ing opinion on what you should do with your body. Anything that makes your day easier, as long as you're not feeding your baby crack in milk, is really good by us. — Lena Dunham

There is a sort of backlash of people who feel like you're not representing them accurately, and you want to say as elegantly as you can, "I wasn't trying to represent you I, was just doing what I could do to make being alive easier for me." And if it helped anyone or made them feel comforted in the process then it's the greatest thing you can ask for. — Lena Dunham

It doesn't occur to so many people that if you don't have a clear heterosexual, gender confirming identity that there are parts of day-to-day life - like using a bathroom or getting your clothes - that just aren't going to be as easy. — Lena Dunham

I think some people are really connected to who they were as children. And some people aren't. — Lena Dunham

One of my favorite facts about Jason [Benjamin] is that he collects shirts from tattoo parlors. He has a bunch of tattoo parlor T-shirts, but no tattoos. And then he wears, like, vans and jeans. My boyfriend said he looks like a modern Bruce Springsteen, which is a pretty high compliment. — Lena Dunham

The experience of directing yourself in a sex scene is, in a way, great. It's the fantasy we all have in our lives all the time. — Lena Dunham

In Hollywood, you've got a hundred people on set, and shooting the sex scene you're wearing nude-toned underwear and tape on your nipples. Nothing is going beyond where you want it to go. — Lena Dunham

Calling someone a drama queen is so negative. Why not 'content creator'? — Lena Dunham

I have an authority problem. — Lena Dunham

My dad finds Twitter just infinitely unrelatable. He's like, 'Why would I want to tell anybody what I had for a snack, it's private?!' And I'm like, 'Why would you even have a snack if you didn't tell anybody? Why bother eating?' — Lena Dunham

I feel lucky in that the same way I've surrounded myself with people I'm creatively comfortable with, I've surrounded myself with people who are accepting of the way that I look. — Lena Dunham

Running had always been off the table for me. It just looks embarrassing when I do it. I viewed it like learning a new language - best to learn it as a child. — Lena Dunham

I have been envious of male characteristics, if not the men themselves. I'm jealous of the ease with which they seem to inhabit their professional pursuits: the lack of apologizing, of bending over backward to make sure the people around them are comfortable with what they're trying to do. The fact that they are so often free of the people-pleasing instincts I have considered to be a curse of my female existence. — Lena Dunham

I've always loved my own little office spaces no matter what they were like. It's the Virginia Woolf, room of one's own concept, it's really important. — Lena Dunham

My boyfriend's a musician, and I think when he's on stage is the only time he's not worrying. And so that's the reason he keeps doing it is because it gives him that sort of experience of weightlessness that I only get out of being sort of, deep into writing something or really lost in a moment on set, like it's available to me in these select moments through my work. — Lena Dunham

You can't force other people to like you and you just kind of have to ride the wave. I think I could have saved myself a lot of sleepless nights with that advice. — Lena Dunham

Instagram what you think is funny and exciting and try not to include any animal abuse! — Lena Dunham

Okay, 'Best Party Ever' -- to me, that's like saying 'Best Gym Ever' or 'Best Nature Documentary Ever,' like how good can it really be? — Lena Dunham

Katherine Heiny's work does something magical: elevates the mundane so that it has the stakes of a mystery novel, gives women's interior lives the gravity they so richly deserve -- and makes you laugh along the way. — Lena Dunham

You have to move so you don't die. You have to move so your brain doesn't atrophy. You have to move so that you look a little bit like a person that you might want to be. There are a thousand reasons why exercise is important, and I've had to find ways to make it sexy for myself. — Lena Dunham

If you watch my movie, you understand I am perverse and weird and angry and not looking to direct a film that ends with a bunch of teenagers exploding into glitter. — Lena Dunham

I think that as our country becomes more tolerant as a whole of certain things, hopefully becomes more tolerant, there's a way that certain kinds of bullying will be passe and unacceptable. — Lena Dunham

It was only when I started making short films in college and I was looking for girls to play the me-ish parts that I thought, Well, maybe I'm just going to try doing this myself before somebody else comes in and handles it. For a long time my acting was just a marriage of convenience between me and these characters that I was writing. — Lena Dunham

I had no clue what anyone was talking about like, you know I don't think I, I don't think any of the depictions of sex were more to me than just like an image of two people's arms rubbing together [when I was eight], I just had no clue. — Lena Dunham

I don't really have a place where people can reach me via email because it got a little overwhelming. People tweet things at me like, "oh DM me for a great story that you'll definitely need to use on the show," which I don't, you know, DM them. — Lena Dunham

You should always go where there is a 'you-shaped' hole in the world. — Lena Dunham

I went to schools that were small enough that basically everyone was in a play. I played a bouncing ball in a production of Alice in Wonderland and a fat man in an Italian commedia dell'arte play. I was given some small chances. — Lena Dunham

I remember asking my mom, "Do you think that I will ever have enough money to live outside of your house?" And she would be like, "You just never know." — Lena Dunham

I didn't tell him I was a virgin, just that I hadn’t done it “that much.” It hurt a little more than I'd expected but in a different way, and he was nervous too and he never came. Afterwards we lay there and talked, and I could tell he was a really nice person. I commended myself for making a healthy, albeit hasty, partner choice. I really couldn't wait to tell my mom. — Lena Dunham

I think what people really hate is to be caught by surprise by criticism. — Lena Dunham

I know that when I am dying, looking back, it will be women that I regret having argued with, women I sought to impress, to understand, was tortured by. Women I wish to see again, to see them smile and laugh and say, It was all as it should have been. — Lena Dunham

I was raised on the internet. — Lena Dunham

I support Selfies! I think the war on selfies is really unjust! — Lena Dunham

The only time I felt like a weird exploiter - even though I knew I wasn't one - was when I was writing a sex scene between me and my adorable co-star [Adam Driver] in which he had to tell me how much he loved my potbelly. It seemed like a weird wish-fulfillment thing, where I'm directing my own fantasy. — Lena Dunham

You just have to work, we all have to work really hard to take care of ourselves and feed ourselves good information, just like we feed ourselves good food. Feed ourselves good books and good messaging and the things that make us feel like we can be connected with ourselves and others in a deeper way. — Lena Dunham

I don't think anyone would want to come to my gallery show. — Lena Dunham

I probably I went into my room alone [when I was six] and I was just like, how have I even, how can I even continue on this earth with this terrible, terrible knowledge [about sex]. — Lena Dunham

We're living in a world where [Judy Blume] books were ever banned, and now like "Fifty Shades of Grey" is being read in high schools. Like it's just a wild. — Lena Dunham

I think that social networking makes people more connected, yet more distant, so there are people with less ties to real friend groups and less a sense of self. — Lena Dunham

I am comforted by the fact that I find a real range of female bodies beautiful, and I hope that other people do too. And even if they don't find it beautiful I hope they're just glad that something like it is happening on TV. — Lena Dunham

I feel like so much more than my gender and so much more than my relationship to my body and my relationship to men. And, but suddenly you're sort of asked to be an expert. — Lena Dunham

But I also think when we embark on intimate relationships, we make a basic human promise to be decent, to hold a flattering mirror up to each other, to be respectful as we explore each other. — Lena Dunham

Life Lessons by Lena Dunham

1. Lena Dunham's work highlights the importance of owning your identity and being unapologetically yourself.
2. Her films and television shows demonstrate the power of vulnerability, and the importance of creating space for honest conversations about difficult topics.
3. Through her work, Lena Dunham encourages viewers to embrace their unique perspectives and to use their voice to create meaningful change.