People
Carrie Fisher’s most powerful quotes on feminism, beauty, and mental health
Updated 7 years ago
From ageism to mental health, hope to self-love, Carrie Fisher’s advice has proven invaluable over the years. So, to celebrate her undeniable role as a champion for women everywhere, we’ve decided to look back at her most powerful, badass, and downright hilarious quotes…
After suffering a heart attack before Christmas, iconic actor, director, and writer Carrie Fisher sadly passed away on Tuesday 27 December 2016; she was just 60 years old.
Her death, unsurprisingly, hit many people hard, and social media was soon flooded with tributes from celebrities and fans alike. Her fellow Star Wars actor Mark Hamill called the news “downright heartbreaking,” adding that his on-screen sister “was one-of-a-kind who belonged to us all - whether she liked it or not”.
“I am grateful for the laughter, the wisdom, the kindness, and even the bratty, self-indulgent crap my beloved space-twin gave me throughout the years,” added the Luke Skywalker actor. “Thanks Carrie, I love you.”
Director George Lucas, meanwhile, said: “She was our great and powerful princess. She will be missed by all.”
And Harrison Ford, who enjoyed a romance with Fisher both on and off-screen, released a heartfelt statement about the loss of his beloved co-star and friend.
“Carrie was one-of-a-kind... brilliant, original. Funny and emotionally fearless,” he said. “She lived her life, bravely... my thoughts are with her daughter, Billie, her mother, Debbie, her brother, Todd, and her many friends. We will all miss her.”
Now, following numerous calls for Donald Trump’s star to be removed from the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Hamill has suggested that it be replaced with one in honour of his on-screen sister.
“How about replacing it with someone who really earned it? Like Carrie Fisher,” he tweeted.
A lot of people on social media are in agreement with Hamill, and it is easy to see why: as is made very clear in each and every single tribute to Fisher, the talented star was a Hollywood treasure - and so much more than her Leia Organa persona.
Fisher was also a director, a script doctor, a best-selling author, and a wonderfully witty feminist, who was never afraid to call out the relentless double standards she faced in the movie industry.
From ageism to mental health, hope to self-love, her advice has proven invaluable over the years - and Fisher deserves our endless praise for being such an inspiration throughout her life.
So, to celebrate her undeniable role as a champion for women everywhere, we’ve decided to look back at Fisher’s most powerful, badass, and downright hilarious quotes.
On beauty
“Screw beauty, it’s superficial anyway, and my other attributes matter way more than my appearance.”
On feminism
“I am the beginning with ‘girl power’— deal with it.”
On the importance of laughter
“I laugh a lot, actually. A lot. I've gotten to an age where I enjoy my life. I've spent enough time struggling with it, and at this point it's living on one side of the magnifying glass; I stay on the side of making big things appear small. I enjoy myself and I have a lot of good friends, good relationships. You learn to get there. Having gone through a lot of stuff I've gone through—I don't want to do that stuff anymore. I take care of myself best as I can. I do the best imitation of maturity I can possibly muster.”
On embracing herself
“I finally quit apologising for it… For being something different. For being strong. Strength is a style. But this happens in acting a lot. If you pretend something over and over, sometimes it comes true.”
On mental health
“Think of it as an opportunity to be heroic – not ‘I survived living in Mosul during an attack’ heroic, but an emotional survival. An opportunity to be a good example to others who might share our disorder.”
On objectification
“You should fight for your outfit. Don’t be a slave like I was.”
On challenging times
“Going through challenging things can teach you a lot, and they also make you appreciate the times that aren't so challenging… the only regret [I have with] my difficulties is making my daughter go through them.”
On love
“I don't hate hardly ever, and when I love, I love for miles and miles...a love so big it should either be outlawed or it should have a capital and its own currency.”
On getting our priorities straight
“We treat beauty like an accomplishment, and that is insane. Everyone in L.A. says, ‘Oh, you look good,’ and you listen for them to say you’ve lost weight. It’s never ‘How are you?’ or ‘You seem happy!'”
On writing
“I always wrote. I wrote from when I was 12. That was therapeutic for me in those days. I wrote things to get them out of feeling them, and onto paper. So writing in a way saved me, kept me company. I did the traditional thing with falling in love with words, reading books and underlining lines I liked and words I didn't know.”
On being Princess Leia
“I am Princess Leia, no matter what. If I were trying to get a good table, I wouldn’t say I wrote Postcards [From the Edge, her best-selling novel]. Or, if I’m trying to get someone to take my check and I don’t have ID, I wouldn’t say: ‘Have you seen [When] Harry Met Sally?’ Princess Leia will be on my tombstone.”
On letting things go
Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
On youth
“What I always wanna tell young people now: Pay attention. This isn't gonna happen again. Rather than try to understand it as it's going along, have it go along for a while and then understand it.”
On saving herself
“I don't want to be a victim.”
On confidence
“Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.”
On ageism
“Females get hired along procreative lines. After 40, we’re kind of cooked.”
On misogyny
“Men don’t age better than women, they’re just allowed to age.”
On Star Wars
“Movies were meant to stay on the screen, flat and large and colourful, gathering you up into their sweep of story, carrying you rollicking along to the end, then releasing you back into your unchanged life. But this movie (Star Wars) misbehaved. It leaked out of the theatre, poured off the screen, affected a lot of people so deeply that they required endless talismans and artefacts to stay connected to it.”
On the perfection myth
“If you have the expectation that you're going to be happy throughout your life - more to the point, if you have a need to be comfortable all the time - well, among other things, you have the makings of a classic drug addict or alcoholic.”
On how she'd like to be remembered
“I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.”
This article was originally published in December 2016.
Image: Getty
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