Kristin Davis quotes: on battling addiction, gaining perspective, giving back, and more.
“I was very poor and I was a waitress, and it’s hard to be a poor waitress in New York.”
“Where I come from, a lot of people didn’t have money, but they didn’t have gangs or drugs either.”
“We all get so caught up in our day-to-day lives and have so many gripes. But when you see the way others live and how they make the best of it, you’ll realize how lucky you are.”
“I was brought up in a household where it was assumed that you would do volunteer work. That was a huge gift my parents gave me.”
“I have visited Kenya. You see people who really are on the brink, and they really have nothing, and they could die. And then you see people being kind. You know, I felt like, I want to be a part of that, and I want to do what I can. Visiting the camp was a life-changing experience. That was really what changed my life and shifted my work towards the UNHCR [the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, that is], and I’m so honored.”
“I’m the most blessed human being in the world because I have the chance to visit. When you’re there, it doesn’t feel as hopeless as it does back here, reading the depressing statistics in the newspaper.”
“Because my children are African American, I feel like it is my duty and my job to do as much research, as much work, build as many bridges as possible, because you are their community, and that is key, and that is so important.”
“In our world of fame there’s a lot of meanness, and for no reason. Personally, I really wish we were not at war. People are dying. It’s wrong. If I’d just been sitting here with that kind of thought, I might be thinking there is no God.”
“My perspective has changed because I’ve had a chance to see people who don’t have anything and are still doing okay, people who don’t have any reason to feel hopeful yet still have hope.”
“I love acting, but you can get lost in the shallow aspects of it. The charitable work I do makes me feel like my fame is worth something – like there’s a purpose to the famousness.”
“I’d wanted to be an actress my whole life, that was my goal, that was all I cared about.”
“I’ve been acting since I was 10 years old. My parents believed in the arts and being well-rounded. So I played piano and violin, I danced and acted. They never thought I would go into acting though. They just wanted a well-rounded child and it was a bit of a shock to my dad when I said, ‘I want to go to acting school,’ because he is a psychology professor and was thinking of something more academic.”
“I just loved being in the theater with all those crazy, creative people.”
“We enjoyed such amazing success on Sex and the City. You don’t expect success on that level, it was such a big deal, and it was so intense and wonderful that it is hard for anything else to live up to it, quite frankly. So now I just try to have fun and work with interesting people.”
“Also, it was a cultural moment that wasn’t being represented in terms of women who were successful and had choices they didn’t have before. They needed a show that they can watch that they felt like represented them.”
“Our goal on Sex and the City is to talk about women who are there for each other, who prop each other up. We’re not about the shoes and the bags – which isn’t to say we don’t love them.”
“Our mothers’ generation fought so hard to change things and we’re the first generation to benefit.”
“Focusing on being thin really doesn’t work for me, so I focus on being healthy and having energy. I think life is too short – and, frankly, I love chocolate. There was a certain point when I realized: you know what? I’m just not going to be the thinnest actress out there. There’s always going to be a thinner girl. I don’t think you get parts based on being the thinnest girl. I don’t think you fall in love based on being the thinnest girl. It sounds simplistic, but I think we forget that.”
“[On overcoming alcohol addiction] I don’t think I would be alive. I’m an addict. I’m a recovering alcoholic. If I hadn’t found acting… acting is the only thing that made me want to ever get sober. I didn’t have anything that was that important to me other than trying to dull my senses. I started drinking very young and luckily I quit very young, before any success happened, thank goodness. Because my love for acting was so big when I was very young, I had something that was more important to me than just drinking.”
“I don’t think the drinking was really a rebellious thing, because I was still a straight-A student. What made me stop? I realized it was not going to end well. I got into the acting program, it was very challenging, I was hungover and I wasn’t doing so well in my classes. I thought, ‘Do you know what? It’s going to be one or the other. I can’t really have both.'”
“I think fashion can have a very negative impact on young people who feel they have to be thin. I am not part of that trend. There is so much pressure on teenage girls.”
“I have a very strong distinction between work and my life. They are not the same and I don’t want to ever feel that on a day-to-day basis that I have to live up to people’s expectations, because you never can do that so I don’t want to put that pressure on myself.”
“I think that when you are famous, it can work against you, people have preconceptions about your image.”
“I may not be perfect, but I’m trying.”
“I have a great life, a great situation.”
Related: Sandra Bullock quotes.
