I think the first thing I thought when I got out to L.A. was just: Oh, if I want to act, I have to find a different way to go about it because the parts for girls are as dispiriting as the banking jobs. You have to really be willing to invent, I guess, a different path for yourself.

Brit Marling

Categorized in : Thinking Different Girl

Here's the thing that I think about life - if you manage to get into a space where you don't need that much, where the overhead of your life is not that great and you're pretty happy and relaxed without that much stuff, you are really liberated because you never have to say yes to something because you want another refrigerator or car!

Brit Marling

car space thinking

I've found myself at one in the morning just sitting at my desk spending an hour returning emails from the day until like two in the morning. It's ridiculous, I should be sleeping, or dreaming, or reading a novel.

Brit Marling

reading dream morning

Being a waitress can be a very brutal job sometimes, and I remember during the training, the person said to me, "The redder the lips, the better the tips," and that was like the only advice she gave me.

Brit Marling

training advice jobs

I feel like success to me is about feeling like I have done something in storytelling, where I've gotten close to articulating something intangible that I'm feeling, and I think I get closer every time, but I don't know that I've done that yet.

Brit Marling

done feelings thinking

One of my favorite stories growing up was 'A Wrinkle in Time'. I loved that book.

Brit Marling

wrinkles growing-up book

Human beings are flawed and complicated and messy.

Brit Marling

messy flawed complicated

I feel like I'm a much better person when I'm developing my imagination and my innocence and my vulnerability. I like that version of me better than the version where I'm just working on my analytical mind.

Brit Marling

innocence imagination mind

Maybe the best definition of what a great partnership or great love is when people make each other grow in a better direction than they would have grown on their own.

Brit Marling

great-love love-is people

A couple of compromises in a row and suddenly you're very far way from the person you thought you were.

Brit Marling

compromise couple way

I get uncomfortable when people give me presents and watch me open them. I don't have birthday parties, because the idea of a group of people singing and looking at me while I'm blowing out candles gives me hives.

Brit Marling

party birthday ideas

Eventually, if you're the train that's leaving the station, people will race to catch up with you. I think that's one of the things I've figured out. You can't wait for permission to act, you just do; then people are like, "Oh, look at that person just doing over there. Maybe I'll come join them."

Brit Marling

waiting people thinking

When I'm sitting writing, I know that something works if I've made myself cry, or laugh, or have a visceral emotion.

Brit Marling

sitting writing laughing

I'm still a bit of a romantic and an idealist and hopelessly naive.

Brit Marling

naive stills idealist

People go to the cinema to be moved; they wanna laugh, they wanna cry, they wanna feel something deeply, especially if they're not feeling deeply in their own lives.

Brit Marling

feelings laughing people

I believe in what science fiction can do, which is it can set up simple rules that it has to follow to try to illuminate something about the present that is somewhat invisible to us.

Brit Marling

simple trying believe

Writing so that I can act became a way of having not more control over my future but not having to wait for permission. You can choose yourself. Hmm, who should play this part? I nominate me!

Brit Marling

waiting play writing

I think I realized very early on that you can spend a lot of time constructing a really perfect scene in final draft and just end up throwing it away because you didn't figure out that mathematics of the story first.

Brit Marling

finals perfect thinking

You are the sum total of the choices you make every day.

Brit Marling

choices-you-make choices

The more time you invest in something, potentially, the deeper the emotional impact of the climax. It's true of relationships, too.

Brit Marling

more-time impact emotional

I learned from my parents the idea that, if you are devoted enough and you want to study something enough, you can really teach yourself anything.

Brit Marling

parent want ideas