Quotes by Lena Dunham

Lets be reasonable and add an eighth day to the week that is devoted exclusively to reading.

All adventurous women do.

I have been envious of male characteristics, if not the men themselves. Im 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 theyre trying to do. The fact that they are so often free of the people-pleasing instincts. I have watched men order at dinner, ask for shitty wine and extra bread with confidence I could never muster, and thought, what a treat that must be. But I also considered being female such a unique gift, such a sacred joy, in ways that run so deep I cant articulate them. Its a special kind of privilege to be born into the body you wanted, to embrace the essence of your gender even as you recognize what you are up against. Even as you seek to redefine it.

Women saying, Im 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 youre a feminist.

I thought I would marry my boyfriend and grow old and sick of him. I thought I would keep my friends, and wed make different, new memories. None of that happened. Better things happened. Then why am I so sad?

The way I saw it, I was fully capable of being treated with indifference that bordered on disdain while maintaining a strong sense of self-respect. I obeyed his commands, sure that I could fulfill this role while still protecting the sacred place inside of me that I knew deserved more. Different. Better.But that isnt how it works.

I understand that you come from a generation of women who had to work hard to be heard, but for you to impugn my feminism and act as though Im a scourge upon women everywhere, just because I refuse to spread your particular agenda? Thats dark, and its not what you fought for. If you continue this way, youre worse than they are (they = men). We are all just trying to get by. There is room for all of us.

I have the nagging sense that my true friends are waiting for me, beyond college, unusual women whose ambitions are as big as their past transgressions, whose hair is piled high, dramatic like topiaries at Versailles, and who never, ever say too much information when you mention a sex dream you had about your father.

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...

You are mad to be spending the summer in the country, where the days are too quiet and you have so much time to think. In the city you live on Broadway, where the noise is so thick your scary thoughts cant get a word in edgewise. But here in the county, there is only space. On the stone bridge by the stream. On the mossy rock at the edge of the yard. Behind the abandoned trailer where Art, the old man with the glass eye, used to live. Space, space, space, and you can scare yourself into thinking your thoughts are more like voices.

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. You are made up of compartments! You are one whole person! What gets said to you gets said to all of you, ditto, what gets done. Being treated like shit is not an amusing game or a transgressive intellectual experiment. It’s something you accept, condone, and learn to believe you deserve. This is so simple. But I tried so hard to make it complicated.

That is because no one could ever hate me as much as I hate myself, okay? So any mean thing someones gonna think of to say about me, Ive already said to me, about me, probably within the last half hour.

Her Brooklyn accent only comes out when shes angry. This is the best part....I pick at my pancakes while she tells me, simply, Its ok to change your mind. About a feeling, a person, a promise of love. I cant stay just to avoid contradicting myself. I dont have to watch him cry.

Youth, with all its accompanying risks, humiliations, and uncertainties, the pressure to do it all before it’s too late.

I feel like there are fifty ways its my fault. I fantasized. I took the big pill and the small pill, stuffed myself with substances to make being out in the world with people my own age a little easier. To lessen the space between me and everyone else. I was hungry to be seen. But I also know that at no moment did I consent to being handled that way.

I have only touched one other computer at my friend Marissas house, and found the experience disconcerting. There was something sinister about the green letters and numbers that flashed on the screen as the computer booted up, and I hated the way Marissa stopped answering questions or noticing me the second it was turned on.

For me, sleep equaled death. How was closing your eyes and losing consciousness any different from death? What separated temporary loss of consciousness from permanent obliteration?

I can feel them. The babies. Theyre not crawling all over me. Theyre not vomiting in my hair or shrieking. Theyre doing perfectly normal baby things, and Im keeping them alive. But I resent them. Their constancy, their intrusion on my relationship and my free time and my naps and my imagination and my heart. Theyve come too soon, and I cant do any of what I had planned. All I can do is survive.

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

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.