Elizabeth Banks Quotes

People ask me how I stay thin, and I'm like, 'When you go to the grocery store, buy more bananas than cookies.'

I think it is really important to put out what you want so the world knows what to give you.

I'm always reaching to find something that will challenge me and make me do my best.

As an actor, you go through life thinking "This stop is the last stop," so you just put your heart and soul into everything and do your best work.

Sex is always funny. I don't find it sexy, I find it really horrifying. But it's an act that we need. And that need, that desire, is what makes it really funny.

You know, women in Hollywood, we don't get action franchises and superheroes. The rom-coms that made Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, and Reese Witherspoon stars are out of favor right now- nobody is making them. In this business, if you are an ambitious person, you don't wait for people to hand you opportunities. You have to make a way for yourself.

As a producer, I really get to tell stories that I care about in a way that I want to. I get to shape them. I get to choose the collaborators. That's really gratifying as a storyteller. And also, frankly, it's really fun to create jobs for other people.

I am never embarrassed by something that makes people laugh.

I met my husband in college, and we've been together for 21 years - it's the thing I'm most proud of in my life. We were trying to figure out how we could make our lives as flexible as possible and do something we both really enjoyed.

I don't think there's one right way to do anything. There's no one best way to be a woman. There's no best way to be a mentor. I'm just trying to be me and be authentic and live my truth and be as inclusive and interested in other human beings as possible. I'm an actor by training, which means that I study human beings and human behavior. That's what I try to do and what I love to do.

Being a creative person is a really personal process so there is no one-size-fits-all advice, that's kind of the first thing I'd say. Because everybody's goals are different. Everybody's talents are different. Some women that I'm talking to want to create a television show. Some women want to be a director. They want to use comedy in different ways, and I find that really fascinating. The main thing I would say is, start! Just do it. Keep going. When people come at you with the negativity and the nos, you've got to ignore it. Push through.

I think it's important to present role models for young women coming up. I really do believe you can't be what you can't see, and representation matters. So, for me, it's the idea of putting women in media in ways that present them as having power, being heard, being true to themselves, and done from the perspective of women.

I think people respond to me as a down-to-Earth, girl-next-door person, because I am one of those people. That's something I don't have to act very hard at.

There's never enough money, there's never enough time, there's never enough reliable help around, anything you plan always goes wrong - it's just hard to be human, isn't it?

I like to say I don't have a fear of heights. I have a fear of human error. I'm very concerned about stupidity.

I am not afraid of much. I kill all the spiders in my house, and I'm planning to go skydiving. I am into girl power, and I'm very self-sufficient.

I'm not trying to have Jake Gyllenhaal's baby. I'm not a major fashionista. I'm not going through a lesbian phase. I'm just normal. I'm just really freakin' normal.

I actually think that secrets are just a part of human nature and that everybody should have some.

I love the finality of film. When you make a movie, you know the beginning, middle, and end.

It's really hard to stay healthy over the long term of making a movie so that's why those things matter when you're trying to keep your health, literally.

My number one advice to high school girls is birth control. You want to keep all your options open for as long as possible? Birth control.

It's really fun to watch yourself disappear in the movie every day.

I'm actively looking for things to direct again. I had such an amazing experience on this. I really am spoiled.

I think we're in a really interesting moment for women globally just in terms of, like, historically, I think we're in an interesting moment for women. Because, it's important to remember, there have always been funny, funny women. Mae West was real funny. Marilyn Monroe was in one of the greatest comedies, Some Like It Hot, ever made. I mean, it's not like we're lacking. I just think the percentage of women in positions of power in all aspects of our culture is improving and women are standing up and demanding to be heard.

There's more empathetic representations than we're used to seeing. I honestly feel like in the early days of Hollywood, women did have those. Women had very traditional roles in society of wife and mother, but when they went to the movies, they got to see women be, like, really cool, amazing characters and femme fatales and all of this. And then there was just this systemic reaction where it was all about, "How do we make money?" And everybody wants to sell things to boys. And then women's entertainment became devalued in a way that I think is disrespectful and hurtful.