Hilary Swank quotes: on growing up in a trailer park, dropping out of high school, challenging herself, her favorite book, and more.
“I think we have a choice every single day in how we want to live our life. You wake up and you make your choice of what you want to do with your day that’s going to help you achieve your dream.”
“You just have to make sure that the people around you are trying to help you on the journey that you want and not the journey that they necessarily want for you. You have to know when to bring their voices in and when to listen to your gut.”
“Because at the end, all you have is the choice that you made for yourself. And that’s the mantra that I live by: make a choice, make it happen. Be really clear about what it is you want in your life and then work towards that every day – and be open-minded when something else comes! So that you go, ‘That’s actually a great idea, and if I wouldn’t have been open-minded, I wouldn’t have thought about that.'”
“As long as we dare to dream and don’t get in the way of ourselves, anything is possible – there’s truly no end to where our dreams can take us.”
“You can change your fate. You can sit back, or you can go after your life and all that you want it to be.”
“As in life, your mind can be the hugest obstacle or tool, depending on how you choose to use it. And I find that a lot of people who are successful in life say, ‘I can do this, and I will do this.'”
“You only have one life and if you’re not doing what you love, what’s the point?”
“I believe that the definition of luck is when preparation meets with opportunity.”
“You need to study and work on your craft. If you’re not prepared when that dream job comes, you are not going to get that opportunity.”
“One thing I’ve learned: you never know where life is taking you, but it’s taking you.”
“There’s no negatives. You just have to trust that what’s happening in your life is unfolding in exactly the right way.”
“You’re always going to make mistakes. That’s life. You just want to grow from them and try to make as few as possible. That’s why you do reach out and ask people for help, where needed.”
“You’re not always going to hit the bullseye… and that’s just a part of being creative. Because really, I think if you’re taking risks and you’re pushing yourself and you’re doing things that scare you, you are going to fall on your face, and it’s not always going to work.”
“I don’t think people should have boundaries put on them, by themselves or society or another gender, because it’s our birthright to experience life in whatever way we feel best suits us.”
“What do dreams know of boundaries?”
“I’m a risk-taker. It’s where my passion lies, so I don’t want to play it safe. That means I’m going to fail sometimes.”
“It’s give-and-take and back-and-forth, that constantly allows you to grow as an artist and as a human being.”
“I’m just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream. I never thought this would ever happen.”
“It’s a quality of my life that I wouldn’t change for the world, having grown up with such a humble background.”
“Growing up in a lower-income family, you don’t have the resources to make ends meet and you have to find creative ways to get by.”
“I really chase the things that I want.”
“I ended up dropping out of high school. I’m a high school dropout, which I’m not proud to say. I had some teachers that I still think of fondly and were amazing to me. But I had other teachers who said, ‘You know what? This dream of yours is a hobby. When are you going to give it up?’ I had teachers who I could tell didn’t want to be there. And I just couldn’t get inspired by someone who didn’t want to be there.”
“I think that we’re all continually searching for who we are, and that’s ever-evolving and changing.”
“I wake up so full of life and feeling so alive and so full of joy when I get to go to a set and tell a story. I just – I couldn’t imagine not having that, and what a gift it’s been in my life.”
“My biggest growth has been sitting with things that are uncomfortable and dealing with them.”
“I look back and I look at all the opportunities that I’ve had to work really hard and really challenge myself, and I like to do things that scare me. I like to do things that I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do. I need the help of talented people around me. I love that it’s a collaboration.”
“I’m always looking for opportunities, even when they’re not offered to me. I will have no hesitation to pick up the phone and call a director or call a writer. There’s so much I want to do as an actor. I feel like there’s so much more that I want to achieve and that I can achieve.”
“I wouldn’t change my past for anything, because I think it’s made me who I am. I’m so enormously grateful for all that I have in my life.”
“Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, by Dr. Seuss, is still one of my favorite books ever.”
“To me, working out is literally like eating a meal or drinking water or breathing.”
“It’s how you look at beauty. Is it only an outward appearance with hair and makeup and a hot body, or is it something deeper than that?”
“People are going to say what they want to say and think what they want to think, and I can’t change their minds.”
“I am a competitive person with myself. I always find new goals to achieve, new challenges to break through, and I try and do something new every day.”
“I stopped trying to chase the perfect place to be, and realized the perfect place is with your loved ones and your closest friends, around the dinner table, over a good meal, talking about the past year and the year to come and things that you want to change in your life. You hear their stories and talk about things you’d like to see happen in the world. That’s what we do.”
“I think that if you can grow together, you’ll stay together. The most important qualities in making a relationship work are a blend of three ingredients: communication, respect and believing in another person.”
“This is my one and only life and it’s a great and terrible and short and endless thing and none of us come out of it alive.”
Check out Clint Eastwood’s quotes next.
