Shailene Woodley Quotes

Quotes by and about Shailene Woodley

(Continued from her main entry on the site.)

Woodley: "The second I wake up, I scream very loudly [sings to the tune of 'Good Morning' from Singin' in the Rain], 'Good morning! Good morning!' And then I scream out, 'Exciting day! Exciting day!' I feel like it completely sets the mood for the whole day."

[Asked what motto she lives by:]
Woodley: "'Everything is sacred and nothing is sacred.' I say that to myself every day."

Woodley: "I think you need to have a deep understanding of who you are and love yourself deeply enough to be able to receive love and feel love from others in a deep way ... but I don't think there's any definitive answer as to what love is because it's so individual. What makes me feel in love may be completely different from how you feel."

[Asked about her habit of hugging each and every journalist she meets:]
Woodley: "We've got a set amount of time in our lives, you know. You might as well make every conversation count. So that's like the hug. It's kind of like, 'Hey, I'm real. You're real. Let's connect.'"

Woodley: "[As a kid] I loved 'The Goonies.' It was sort of the first movie that made my eyes open up to the possibilities of the world. I think it made me want and crave adventure. Even now, I watch it and it makes me want to be an explorer of the world."

[Interviewer: "Is there anyone you're really dying to meet?"]
Woodley: "Yes, but unfortunately she's dead, so it won't happen in the physical realm: Anais Nin, the French author. I just think that she's so incredible. ... I have a huge, huge draw to her. I read her book 'Henry and June' a few years ago for the first time, and have since read it so many times it's not even funny, but the connection she has with her own body and her own spirit - her feminine and masculine spirit - and the way that she writes is so in touch with what her experience is, and I've very rarely found people who are able to articulate exactly what their mental state is feeling, and I haven't found anyone who can do it better than her."

Woodley: "Laughter is kind of hard to come by with a lot of people, but I think life is so funny and so unfair, so why are we trying to be so serious about it? That makes no sense to me."

Woodley: "[As a teen] I was constantly fighting for my freedom. When I was a freshman, I was hanging out with seniors, so I wanted to go out with them to parties and things and experience life. And for my mom, it was like, 'Okay, you can go, but I'm going to call the parents first,' or 'I'm going to drop you off.' So I felt like I had an amazing amount of freedom, but it was micromanaged freedom - that's how I used to phrase it. We fought a lot. I think I was a very hard teenager to live with."

Woodley: "[My friend] said, 'Listen, Shai: labels are labels. I don't need to label myself because I know who I am.' That clicked for me really hard, and it was this defining moment in my life that I've taken with me and encourage others to do the same. Labels are for other people to understand us ... because I know what my truth is."

Woodley: "Labels are for people to understand one another, not for us to understand ourselves. I know where my cayenne sits in my spice cabinet. You can go and label each distinct spice, but I know what my flavors are."

Woodley: "I know how I feel, and I know what I do ... and I don't need to prove that to anyone."

Woodley: "I exclusively buy used clothes. I'm going to be a citizen of this planet, and I'm going to do my responsibility and live in stride with nature instead of constantly fighting against her."

Woodley: "I was an environmentalist in high school - or, I guess, a self-proclaimed environmentalist - and I started reading about the food system in America and how it's owned by all of these corporations. I was on a quest to find out what healthy really meant because people were saying that veganism was healthy or that the Paleo diet was healthy, but I really had no idea. So I started researching indigenous people and what their lifestyles were like because I was fascinated by the fact that they could still run in their eighties and still had amazing muscular and nervous systems, whereas in America now, by the time we get to our thirties, it's really hard for us to lose weight and maintain a healthy body and composition. So I just started adapting my lifestyle to that of indigenous people, and what I realized is that we're all indigenous creatures on this planet. The whole concept of re-wilding came about through some really good friends of mine, and it's basically about adapting to your current situation. If you're in the city, then you can't go back to hunter-and-gatherer times, so you have to adapt to the lifestyle that's out there. Herbalism is part of that, and knowing how to heal our bodies naturally and knowing about organic farming. It's so important and essential to the Earth, to Gaia. We want to continue to live on this planet, and I think we need to break down the associations that we have that we're different from nature - that we need to protect the Earth and save the Earth - when we are, in fact, part of the Earth. So it all starts with us. If we want to save the planet, then I think we need to start saving ourselves in order to do that. I believe that organic farming, among many other practices, can really start that shift."

Ansel Elgort: "She's honest with people, there's no BS and she's not fake, she's a real friend because of that. ... I learned a lot about her because she's so open. She's a totally open soul. ... She is so emotionally available."

George Clooney: "Shailene can do whatever she wants. If she wants to be a movie star, she has it. If she wants to change the world, she will. Her talent and kindness go hand in hand."