Famous ENFPs

ENFP

Hunter S. Thompson

Journalist, author of 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'

Thompson: "I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right."

Thompson: "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

Thompson: "I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours."

Thompson: "[Nixon was] a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad. ... [He was] absolutely humorless."

Frank Kelly Rich: "There was always a powerful comfort in knowing he was out there somewhere ... guzzling high-octane whiskey and railing against a world amok with complacency and hypocrisy."

Frank Kelly Rich: "Hunter didn't have to seek out adventure, he was adventure."

ENFP

Mark Twain

Journalist and author

Twain: "I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up."

Twain: "I have been told that Wagner's music is better than it sounds."

Twain: "Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."

Twain: "Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. ... I've done it thousands of times."

Twain: "Who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?"

Andrew Carnegie: "The public only knows one side of [Mark Twain] - the amusing part. Little does it suspect that he was a man of strong convictions upon political and social questions and a moralist of no mean order."

ENFP

Oscar Wilde

Playwright

Wilde: "I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best."

Wilde: "America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up."

Wilde: "Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."

Wilde: "Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious."

Wilde: "A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."

Wilde: "I can resist everything except temptation."

ENFP

Aldous Huxley

Author of 'Brave New World'

Huxley: "[I am not] the captain of my soul; I am only its noisiest passenger."

Huxley: "Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life."

Huxley: "Genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm."

Huxley: "A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves."

The Guardian: "[He is the] prophet of our present. ... Even his casual asides have a surprising relevance."

ENFP

Umberto Eco

Semiotician and author of 'The Name of the Rose'

Eco: "[In my writing] I know that I have made a caricature out of [others' academic] theories [but] I think that caricatures are frequently good portraits."

Eco: "[I am fascinated by stupidity] because normal intelligence is boring. Two plus two makes four - finished. You have no possibilities! Stupidity is infinite. Two plus two can make billions of different numbers."

Eco: "Socrates ... did not write. It seems academically obvious that he perished because he did not publish!"

Nassim Taleb: "Umberto Eco is the owner of a large personal library of almost 30,000 books that he has not read. [To him] read books are far less valuable than unread ones."

ENFP

Salman Rushdie

Author of 'The Satanic Verses', condemned to death by Ayatollah Khomeini

Rushdie: "'The Satanic Verses' celebrates hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs."

Rushdie: "[In literature] I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination of the heart."

Rushdie: "[My work] is a love song to our mongrel selves."

Rushdie: "Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself."

ENFP

Julian Assange

Founder of WikiLeaks

Assange: "Every time we witness an act that we feel to be unjust and do not act, we become a party to injustice."

Assange: "Those who are repeatedly passive in the face of injustice soon find their character corroded."

Assange: "I enjoy helping people who are vulnerable."

ENFP

Ralph Nader

Leader of the U.S. Green Party and author

Nader: "The only true aging is the erosion of one's ideals."

Nader: "Every time I see something terrible, it's like I see it at age 19. I keep a freshness that way."

Nader: "[As a child] I was very interested in books that detailed injustice and how people who are underdogs were mistreated throughout history."

Nader: "The only difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party is the velocity with which their knees hit the floor when the big corporations come asking."

ENFP

Anne Frank

Author of 'The Diary of a Young Girl' and Holocaust victim

Frank: "It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart."

Frank: "During the third class [my teacher had] finally had enough. 'Anne Frank, as punishment for talking [so much] you will write an essay entitled, 'Quack, Quack, Quack, Said Miss Chatterback.''"

Nelson Mandela: "[I] read Anne Frank's diary [while imprisoned] on Robben Island and derived much encouragement from it."

ENFP

Arianna Huffington

Editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post

Huffington: "I'm passionate. I find if I really believe something, I want to put my entire being behind it."

Huffington: "I don't like the idea of [having] a thick skin. I think we [should] be more childlike."

[On why she left the right wing:]
Huffington: "[I] realized that corporate America was never going to step up to the plate and help society's disadvantaged by itself. Other people had to force [them to do] it."

The Observer: "Hurricane Arianna never stops blowing. ... She has been called the most upwardly mobile Greek since Icarus."

ENFP

Walt Disney

Founder of The Walt Disney Company

Disney: "I do not make films primarily for children. I make them for the child in all of us, whether we be six or sixty."

Disney: "The worst of us is not without innocence. ... In my work I try to reach and speak to that innocence."

Disney: "[In my work I show] the fun and joy of living ... that laughter is healthy [and] that the human species ... is still reaching for the stars."

Cory Doctorow: "Disney is a delight, someone who ... sweeps those around him along on his dream."

ENFP

Kurt Vonnegut

Author of 'Slaughterhouse-Five'

Vonnegut: "[I write] intuitively, reflexively, as if skiing down a steep mountain slope with no time to think."

Vonnegut: "I don't know about you, but I practice a dis-organized religion. I belong to an un-holy disorder. We call ourselves 'Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment.'"

Vonnegut: "The only difference between Bush and Hitler is that Hitler was elected."

Philip Trent: "Vonnegut was much like Mark Twain [in] outlook. He loved life and had high ideals which often caused him disappointment."

ENFP

Osho

Mystic

Osho: "It is beautiful that there are three hundred religions in the world; more are needed. ... Each person should have his own religion - there should be as many religions as there are people!"

Osho: "Mohammedans say there is only one God and only one prophet of God, that is Muhammad. Then God seems to be very poor - just ONE prophet?"

Osho: "Ordinary society is like a paperweight on you: It won't allow you to fly."

Osho: "In the West, if the husband is dead, the widow goes back to being 'miss' again. [Under Indian law] this is impossible. Once you have missed, you cannot miss again!"

ENFP

Naomi Klein

Author of 'The Shock Doctrine'

Klein: "Anybody who claims that they know where this whole thing is all going is just lying."

Klein: "Communication is my thing."

Klein: "We are looking to [corporate] brands for poetry and for spirituality, because we're not getting those things from our communities or from each other."

[Her husband:] "Naomi is a pattern recognizer. ... Her great strength is helping people recognize patterns in the world, because that's the fundamental first step toward changing things."

Rachel Maddow: "['The Shock Doctrine' is] the only book of the last few years in American publishing that I would describe as a mandatory must-read."

ENFP

Michio Kaku

Physicist

Kaku: "To become a theoretical physicist ... you need to have a passionate love affair with the universe."

Kaku: "Scientists are embarrassed by science fiction; they want to distance themselves as much as possible. ... I think there's nothing to be ashamed of [and that] we should take science fiction seriously."

Beth Starbuck: "He has an almost child-like enthusiasm for science."

Colin Blundell: "He has a poetic sensibility."

ENFP

Brian Cox

Physicist

Cox: "What [I'm] attached to are journeys into the unknown and discovering things that are completely unexpected and baffling and surprising."

Cox: "I don't need answers to everything. I want to have answers to find."

Cox: "I enjoy [being on] television because there is an artistic side to my character."

Cox: "Ideas make me emotional."

Jane Fryer: "There's something about his ... poetic descriptions [and] bubbling emotions ... that demystifies science and makes it fascinating."

ENFP

Jacques Derrida

Post-structuralist philosopher

Derrida: "I love language as I love life itself!"

Derrida: "I say things that contradict each other, that are in real tension with each other, that compose me, that make me live, and that will make me die."

Mark Lilla: "He is more performance artist than logician. [He has a] flamboyant style - using free association, rhymes and near-rhymes, puns, and maddening digressions."

Barry Smith: "His work consists in no small part of elaborate jokes and puns [like] 'logical phalluses.'"

Julia Wells: "To Derrida, writing is the orphaned 'son' of living speech."

ENFP

Alan Watts

Writer and speaker on Buddhism

Watts: "Being brought up and 'educated' is a form of hypnosis, brainwashing, and indoctrination that is extremely difficult to survive with one's senses intact."

Watts: "For me, being literate and articulate is a form of judo, of overcoming the [system] by its own method."

Watts: "I made to myself the solemn vow that I would never be an employee or put up with a 'regular job.' ... [And in my life] I have been a free lance, a rolling stone."

Watts: "I want ... to consort with people whose emotions are not ... cold and standoffish."

ENFP

Milo Yiannopoulos

Journalist and provocateur

Yiannopoulos: "I'm an entertainer; I'm a performer. ... [What I do is] part lecture, part stand-up."

Yiannopoulos: "[I have a] natural instinct for mischief."

Yiannopoulos: "[I want to see] the wicked suffer ... it's the reason I went into journalism. ... [I see myself as a] crusader for truth and justice."

[His grandmother]: "[He] can be a catty little queen at times. ... But [his] heart's in the right place."

National Post: "[He is a] fascinating, outrageous and irrepressible enfant terrible."

ENFP

Anais Nin

Diarist and author

Nin: "In [me] there's always movement, renewal, surprises. I have never known stagnation."

Nin: "[For me] not even introspection has been a still experience."

Nin: "The poet is the one who is able to keep the fresh vision of the child alive."

Nin: "Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls."

Nin: "I am an excitable person ... in whom feelings are much stronger [than] reason."

ENFP

Andrew Yang

Entrepreneur and presidential candidate (D)

Yang: "Humanity is more important than money. ... There's a saying ... 'what gets measured gets managed for.' We need to start measuring different things."

Yang: "[Politics is] tough. ... You go in hoping to make a difference. But you quickly get jaded by the system."

Arianna Huffington: "Yang is one of those rare visionaries who puts dreams into action."

Alec Ross: "[Yang issues] a call to arms that comes from both head and heart."

ENFP

Salvador Dali

Surrealist painter

Dali: "[I am a] contradictory and paradoxical man."

Dali: "[My art is] capable of liberating man from the tyranny of the 'practical, rational world.'"

Dali: "It is not necessary for the public to know whether I am joking or whether I am serious, just as it is not necessary for me to know it myself."

New York Times: "He wanted ... to systematize confusion and to discredit the world of everyday reality. He did this in his paintings, but also in life."

ENFP

Orson Welles

Filmmaker

Welles: "[I have a] fondness for telling stories, like the Arab storytellers on the marketplace. ... I will never grow tired of [telling] stories [and] I make the mistake of thinking that everyone has the same enthusiasm!"

Welles: "I must be sincere towards what I am. ... Experimenting is the only thing that fills me with enthusiasm. ... It is the only sphere where I feel really honest and sincere."

Welles: "I love moving around from town to town. I never got on a train in my life without my spirits rising."

Jean Cocteau: "He has the manner of a giant with the look of a child. [He is] an active idler and a mad sage."

ENFP

George Carlin

Stand-up comedian

Carlin: "Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist."

Carlin: "I have a lot of things [in me] that are childlike and innocent and sweet."

Carlin: "What counted to me [was being] true to myself. ... I just had to be who I felt like I was."

Carlin: "I definitely have a gift for language that is rhythmic and attractive to the ear, and I have interesting [verbal] imagery which I guess is a poetic touch."

ENFP

Oliver Stone

Filmmaker

Stone: "[When making movies I] set out to be authentic to [myself] and to put it down the way [I] feel it and know it and interpret it. And then others sometimes key into it and get it."

Stone: "Reagan and Thatcher [came] into office ... and they kicked off an international deterioration ... of values."

Stone: "Nixon was psychologically disturbed."

Stone: "[Fidel Castro] has a very good [human rights] record."

Stone: "What Chavez has done [in Venezuela] is that he has brought extreme poverty to an end."

Stone: "I couldn't despise a man more than George W. Bush."

ENFP

Katie Couric

Journalist

Couric: "I knew I had to be a journalist because I'm deeply curious about the world."

Couric: "[I am enthusiastic about journalism because] it's a craft that can ... galvanize an often complacent citizenry, and make a difference."

[On criticism of her reporting style:]
Couric: "Some said I lacked gravitas, which I've since decided is Latin for 'testicles.'"

ENFP

Rachel Maddow

Talk show host

Maddow: "I'm all about bringing the bad guy into sharper relief."

Maddow: "Nothing about me wants to write. I reject it like a transplanted organ. ... I find it hard to commit to a sentence."

[On Republican opposition to Obama:]
Maddow: "Congressional Republicans had a collective war-gasm trying to make the president's budget seem scary."

ENFP

Ellen DeGeneres

Talk show host

DeGeneres: "There's nothing I know for sure, because I know for sure that things change."

DeGeneres: "I like to try new things because I get bored so easily."

DeGeneres: "I want people to like me - but not at my expense."

DeGeneres: "You're not supposed to shove your feelings under the rug."

DeGeneres: "I care passionately about equal rights [and] animal rights."

ENFP

Ricky Gervais

Comedian and actor

Gervais: "I never had a plan. I just sort of ambled along, doing exactly what I wanted every day of my life."

Gervais: "With 'The Office' and 'Extras' I've always snuck in a little bit of heart and pathos - and drama, which is fun."

Gervais: "I've got the attention span of a child."

Gervais: "I remember the first check I got for 'The Office,' and it made me feel sad. It ruined it. ... Because there was sort of a nobility in poverty."

ENFP

Robin Williams

Actor and stand-up comedian

Williams: "I started doing comedy because that was the only stage that I could find. It was the pure idea of being on stage."

Williams: "The Second Amendment! It says you have the right to bear arms, or the right to arm bears, [to do] whatever ... you want to do!"

Williams: "George W. Bush was in Bigfoot's National Guard unit. [They had the] same number of sightings."

ENFP

Jerry Seinfeld

Actor and stand-up comedian

Seinfeld: "To me, if life boils down to one thing, it's movement. To live is to keep moving."

Seinfeld: "There are more social skills required to talk one-on-one [than to an audience]. You don't have to be socially fluid to talk to two thousand people."

Seinfeld: "[I like to] engage with funny people, or weird people, or, you know, kind of off people. [Whereas when I meet] anybody who's ... normal ... I'm not curious, I'm not interested."

ENFP

Keira Knightley

Actress

Knightley: "The thing I love about acting is getting to change and look at different people in different lives and do different projects."

Knightley: "The most important thing in playing any character is not judging."

Knightley: "I'm ... incredibly open with my mates. Or even people I just meet."

Elle Magazine: "[The] press adores her because she's fun company - a woman with a gift for verbal sparring."

ENFP

Jennifer Aniston

Actress, was married to Brad Pitt, dated John Mayer

Aniston: "I love the unknown. I love the discovery of what will be happening."

Aniston: "It gets so boring to do the same thing over and over."

Aniston: "I always say: 'Don't make plans, make options.'"

Aniston: "I will always speak my mind."

ENFP

Sandra Bullock

Actress

Bullock: "I don't ever want to come home saying, 'I should have spoken my mind. I shouldn't have let someone say something that I didn't feel was right.'"

Bullock: "I just want people to admit that there's no one way to live your life."

ENFP

Jenna Elfman

Actress

Elfman: "Since I was born I wanted to entertain and communicate. I wanted to communicate so badly ... My sixth-grade math teacher taped my mouth. I'm still out to get her [for that]. It was very traumatizing!"

Elfman: "I [have] love for others and love for life."

ENFP

Alicia Silverstone

Actress and vegetarian activist

Silverstone: "[I] educate people to be kinder to each other, and to other life-forms. There has been racism, sexism and now there is 'species-ism.' People think that they are better than other creatures."

Silverstone: "One of the things I love best about [my] 'Kind Diet' is that you will actually become part of the solution to our global problems."

ENFP

Sarah Michelle Gellar

Actress

Gellar: "Being outspoken has always gotten me into trouble. I'm just this little thing and then all of a sudden it comes out."

Gellar: "You need to keep your creative juices flowing and keep [your] character interesting."

Gellar: "[My character] Buffy is very similar to me. ... A child in an adult world, sort of trapped between the two."

ENFP

Shailene Woodley

Actress

Woodley: "I have a tendency to talk extremely fast. ... I think the fastness comes from the fact that I get very excited about things and I just want to spit them out."

Woodley: "You really can't prepare for anything in life. The second you know what's going to happen, there's always a curve ball, so I'm just chillin', cruising along for the ride."

Woodley: "Everything is out of your control, and you can only be truthful about how you feel."

Woodley: "[I'm] the girl at a hippie festival in the middle of the forest with war paint on my face, dancing around with hairy armpits."

ENFP

Daniel Radcliffe

Actor

Radcliffe: "I have described myself as being 'gently eccentric.'"

Radcliffe: "I might like to be an actor, but there are loads of other things I'm interested in as well, like music and writing. ... I want to keep my options open."

Radcliffe: "[I] take inspiration from kids. ... They're very honest in how they act and how they are in the world."

ENFP

Jack White

(White Stripes)

White: "Passion, for me, is like a shark - it never stops moving."

White: "In all my songs, I take on roles and play characters. It's a unique way to explore ideas and decisions I might not think or make in real life."

White: "I'm one of those people that you have to keep your eye on or I'll wander off into the woods and forget to come back."

ENFP

Gwen Stefani

(No Doubt)

Stefani: "I love that contradiction of being feminine but playing in the boys' treehouse. My whole life's been like that."

Stefani: "No one can force me to do something unless I'm passionate about it."

Elizabeth Constance: "Stefani's persona [is] alternately an embrace of little-girl-lost innocence and riot grrrl feminism."

USA Today: "[She has] youthful enthusiasm [and] breathless energy."

ENFP

Sharon Stone

Actress

Stone: "I think for a long time people just did not know what to do with me. I looked like a Barbie doll ... and I ... had ideas [that were unconventional and] that didn't make sense."

Stone: "A woman has many faces as she goes through her life. ... We have [experiences], we learn, and we grow; we view life differently, and life views us differently."

ENFP

Philippe Jaroussky

Countertenor

Jaroussky: "[I] want to keep something of childhood, the pure innocence."

Jaroussky: "For me it's difficult when someone proposes a project because I'm always enthusiastic [and want to say yes to it even if] it's too much."

Cecilia Bartoli: "When I heard Philippe Jaroussky for the first time, I was struck by his ... sensibility. ... There is a ... delicacy, if not fragility in his soul, that touches the listener profoundly."

Andreas Scholl: "I experienced, for the first time, what other people feel when I heard [him sing]. ... I got goosebumps!"

ENFP

James Mercer

(The Shins)

Mercer: "I tend to [have] a lot of ideas but then just leave them in that infant form and kind of move on."

Mercer: "I really [enjoy] working with new people and just sort of the freshness of it. ... I [want] to have those new conversations, musically and otherwise."

Mercer: "I do like talking with friends about big concepts, you know, the stuff that will ruin a party. To me, the party hasn't begun until we're talking about the nonexistence of God."

Mercer: "I'm not really excited about the idea of committing to anything permanently."

ENFP

J.J. Abrams

Director

Abrams: "What I love ... is a sense of unlimited possibility, the sense that life could bring you anything, that around every corner could be something amazing."

Abrams: "I don't try and look at things from the outside in and apply some kind of logic - there's no strategy or game plan."

Stephen McPherson: "He manages to maintain an almost childlike thrill to what he's doing."

Damon Lindelof: "His brain can be in 15 places at once. ... He has an X-Men version of ADD, where it's ... a superpower."

Jeff Melvoin: "His versatility puts one in mind of Orson Welles."

ENFP

Ian McDiarmid

Actor

McDiarmid: "Serious work gets done ... in congenial surroundings, which tend to make you laugh."

McDiarmid: "If you're any kind of artist, you've got to ... keep opening yourself to new possibilities."

McDiarmid: "[Not relating to] the world as it is, but the world as [one] would like it to be. ... That ... strikes a chord in me."

McDiarmid: "I think the greatest thing about being an actor is that you can become other people. ... You have the opportunity to explore ... alternative ways of living for a brief time."

The Guardian: "At 57, there is definitely something young and quietly anarchic about McDiarmid."

ENFP

Shia LaBeouf

Actor

LaBeouf: "When the ship is sinking and you're forced to choose sides, the new solution is to jump from island to island to island. You don't have to pick."

LaBeouf: "I'm constantly jumping off cliffs and developing my wings on the way down. ... It's a gamble, a ... spiritual gamble. You are who you choose to be."

LaBeouf: "There's beauty in people who reinvent themselves. Actors live a thousand lives, as do hackers ... the personality can play around forever."

GQ Magazine: "[He has] a big, bulletproof laugh - young, infectious, beyond prosecution ... as much sinner as saint."

ENFP

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Actor

Gordon-Levitt: "Being willing to change what you think you know can introduce entirely new possibilities."

Gordon-Levitt: "[People get] treated like objects on a shelf sometimes. ... You can tell they have already decided what you are and put you in a box with a label on it."

Gordon-Levitt: "No category ever really describes a person because every person is unique."

Gordon-Levitt: "Young actors can be the best actors! They are closer to the days when you can [be] completely uninhibited."

Out Magazine: "[He is on a] restless quest for authenticity and connection."

ENFP

Amy Schumer

Stand-up comedian and actress

Schumer: "I never had any plan. I didn't even have a plan for performing. ... Even now ... I don't know what's going to happen."

Schumer: "I love communicating and I love having an open door."

Schumer: "[Much of my comedy is] about injustice and things I feel are unfair."

Schumer: "I love Gloria Steinem and could not be more grateful for her work."

GQ Magazine: "One of Amy Schumer's many comedic gifts is the way she has turned oversharing into a majestic art."

ENFP

Brie Larson

Actress

Larson: "Life's not fun when you're serious all the time."

Larson: "[I am] easily adaptable and ready to be in whatever is happening."

Larson: "I love [being] in contact with many different ways of living and different perspectives."

Larson: "[What] is honest to me is not necessarily honest to anybody else. ... There's so many different ways to be honest. ... Someone ... said 'art is a lie to tell the truth.' I think that's an interesting concept."

ENFP

Hans Zimmer

Composer

Zimmer: "Answers are usually boring. The answers should always ask the next question."

Zimmer: "The great thing about my life is that I go from project to project and each is vastly different. The opportunity for something unexpected always exists."

Zimmer: "Whatever ... [I] do, I want you to expect the unexpected. ... [I am] trying to reinvent [myself] every chance [I] get."

Zimmer: "All I wanted to do is say to the audience: It's not what you expect it to be. But it's going to be an adventure, and just come along! Just come along."

Zimmer: "The operative word of music is 'play.' It's so important not to forget that in your life."

Christopher Nolan: "I have never worked with someone so dedicated to the idea that the real risk is in playing it safe."