Lena Dunham: What a snarky jerk. (Obviously, I later slept with him.)

Girls are trained to say, ‘I wrote this, but it’s probably really stupid.’ Well, no, you wouldn’t write a novel if you thought it was really stupid. Men are much more comfortable going, ‘I wrote this book because I have a unique perspective that the world needs to hear.’ Girls are taught from the age of seven that if you get a compliment, you don’t go, ‘Thank you’, you go, ‘No, you’re insane.

Lena Dunham

girl education attitude

Part of being a feminist is giving other women the freedom to make choices you might not necessarily make yourself.

Lena Dunham

feminist choices giving

Don't wait around for someone else to tell your story. Do it yourself by whatever means necessary.

Lena Dunham

waiting mean directors

I think that it's very important to be with someone who makes you feel like the best version of yourself. In some sense, your partner is a mirror, and you have to like what they're reflecting back at you.

Lena Dunham

reflecting-back mirrors thinking

I can never be who I was. I can simply watch her with sympathy, understanding, and some measure of awe. There she goes, backpack on, headed for the subway or the airport. She did her best with her eyeliner. She learned a new word she wants to try out on you. She is ambling along. She is looking for it.

Lena Dunham

airports understanding trying

I consider being female such a unique gift, such a sacred joy, in ways that run so deep I can't articulate them. It's a special kind of privilege to be born into the body you wanted, to embrace the essence of your gender even as you recognize what you are up against. Even as you seek to redefine it.

Lena Dunham

unique essence running

Women saying "I'm not a feminist" is my greatest pet peeve. Do you believe that women should be paid the same for doing the same jobs? Do you believe that women should be allowed to leave the house? Do you think that women and men both deserve equal rights? Great, then you're a feminist.

Lena Dunham

jobs men believe

My shape reminds me a lot of my grandmother, whom I was really close to. She died when I was 13, and we have a really similar body type, the squat New England woman who can roll out dough and bring in your lawnmower. That's kind of the vibe of my body, and I'm into it.

Lena Dunham

body-types grandmother shapes

But ambition is a funny thing: it creeps in when you least expect it and keeps you moving, even when you think you want to stay put.

Lena Dunham

ambition moving thinking

It's very easy for me to say what success is. I think success is connecting with an audience who understands you and having a dialogue with them. I think success is continuing to push yourself forward creatively and not sort of becoming a caricature of yourself.

Lena Dunham

becoming easy thinking

Confidence lets you pull anything off, even Tevas with socks.

Lena Dunham

sock

I don't really have a place where people can reach me via email because it got a little overwhelming. People tweet things at me like, "oh DM me for a great story that you'll definitely need to use on the show," which I don't, you know, DM them.

Lena Dunham

email littles people

Enjoy going through life as yourself.

Lena Dunham

kind-of-girl enjoy

Let's be reasonable and add an eighth day to the week that is devoted exclusively to reading.

Lena Dunham

week reading add

Women want to control other women because they've been controlled themselves. It's a cycle of control. I'm not blaming women for that, but I am saying we're part of a toxic culture that's feeding all of us the same messaging.

Lena Dunham

toxic want culture

Like Summer Sisters comforted me just because I was like, okay things I've seen with my own eyes are not so terrible, and even though I knew adult gay people and had absolutely no issue with it. And I just couldn't articulate what made me so uncomfortable about the space that I shared with my friends becoming a sexual space. And it was very healing for me to read that, and feel like it was a part of other friendships, even fictional friendships I admire.

Lena Dunham

eye healing summer

There is nothing gutsier to me than a person announcing that their story is one that deserves to be told, especially if that person is a woman. As hard as we have worked and as far as we have come, there are still so many forces conspiring to tell women that our concerns are petty, our opinions aren’t needed, that we lack the gravitas necessary for our stories to matter. That personal writing by women is no more than an exercise in vanity and that we should appreciate this new world for women, sit down, and shut up.

Lena Dunham

vanity exercise writing

My thoughts on body image are simple: if you are being kind to yourself mentally and physically you never have anything to be ashamed for, ever.

Lena Dunham

be-kind body simple

My parents are artists; in their world, in the world of modern artists, you are supposed to just go into your studio and tune everything out, and your entire relationship with your work is supposed to be a super private one. That was the way to do it and you weren't deeply truly artistic if that wasn't the way you were engaging the press.

Lena Dunham

tunes parent artist

Mine's [fans] a lot of like weird guys in prison. So I don't need to answer them.

Lena Dunham

fans guy needs