Bonnie Hunt quotes: on going from poor to more; Midwest to Hollywood; nurse to actress.
“If I’ve learned one thing in life, it’s: stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”
“When you fail by your own standards, it’s a form of success.”
“Acting was a hobby. Growing up in my neighborhood, I didn’t really think it would be possible to act, but my dad always told us to go for our dreams. I was really lucky to be a nurse first, because it’s given me the gift of perspective. One of my patients told me, ‘When are you going to go out to L.A.?’ I said, ‘I’m not going to because then I’d fail and have to come back and explain myself.’ He told me, ‘Bonnie, I’m facing the end of my own life and one of my biggest regrets is not going out and failing a few times.’ So he made me promise I would. And I’ve failed many times, but I’ve learned from them. You always learn more from your failures than successes.”
“Improvisation, if you play it at the top of your intelligence, leads to a kind of truth that people find really accessible.”
“Because I’ve been so blessed with a background in nursing and spent so much time with patients at a really intimate, vulnerable time in their lives, the one lesson I’ve learned is that you never turn down a challenge where you can keep your creative integrity and your heart and soul and your sense of self.”
“I still have my bad days when I think I’m not getting everything I deserve. But those pass quickly once my mother gets on the phone and says, ‘Listen, we used to eat rocks and walk 80 miles a day to school.'”
“There were seven kids in our family. My mom had seven kids in 10 years. So you had to learn how to talk and think fast if you wanted to be heard.”
“I’ve talked about my mom, like David Letterman has, for so many years. Everyone can relate to a mom. I’m lucky to still have my mom in my life. I just want to share her with everybody. She is still very much the same mom I had when I was seven years old. She genuinely loves and cares about people and is very funny, which is why I have quite a sense of humor.”
“I grew up in a working-class neighborhood, so there was always a sense of struggle, but we had hope.”
“Everybody knows when you’re a struggling family; you don’t really know it when you’re a kid. But you do know the difference between stress and moments of relief where there’s, like, this happiness.”
“I was very down as a teenager, very upset because I had gotten hurt in a car accident. But my dad was a source of strength. He used to say, ‘It’s the character with strength that God gives the most challenges to.’ I’ve thought about that so many times in my life when things didn’t go right.”
“I think families are so great, because when you go home, no matter what you’ve accomplished in your life, you still are the person you were in sixth grade to them. You know, it never really changes.”
“Just ’cause there’s snow on the roof doesn’t mean there’s not a fire inside.”
“I think you have to see the high highs and the low lows to get to the core of what makes us tick as people.”
“My only power is my ability to do something with passion and do it well. It’s also something someone cannot take away from me, so it’s very valuable.”
“I love writing.”
“I love talking to people and finding out their opinion.”
“I am a storyteller, and I take great pride in the storytelling and a great joy.”
“I don’t have the fear I won’t be able to think of something else to write. It’s what I do.”
“The cheapest form of therapy is writing and performing. You know what it’s like when you like somebody and you write a letter that you’ll never send? But you feel better just because you wrote the letter? Just don’t mail it or do any of that drunk dialing. It’s the same thing.”
“Humor is very healing.”
“I don’t know if I realized that I was funny; but I realized how healing and important humor was in my childhood.”
“If you’re authentic, people smile because they sense there’s a piece of themselves there.”
“Hollywood is what you make it; you have to choose company with care because you become what they are.”
“I learned a lot from Johnny [Carson], from how to welcome a guest to a show to respecting who they are and their story. He always did that. There was nothing desperate or anxious about him. That is sometimes a lost art in television. David [Letterman] has always been so supportive and encouraging to me. He’s had me on his show and has been a business partner. He’s a friend – someone I call if I need advice or to bounce an idea off someone. Johnny and David knew and understood me. We are all from the Midwest. With that comes a certain sensibility and humor. We are all grateful for the opportunities, and it’s been a great honor to work with both of them.”
“Everywhere I go, people think I’m Helen Hunt.”
“But I’m thrilled to be employed, and to work with all my friends and people that I admire. You’re just lucky to work – that’s the bottom line.”
“I’ve been so fortunate in my career and my own life just to have all these opportunities.”
Also good: Hilary Swank sayings.
