Jennifer Beals Quotes

[Speaking about women’s friendships] If two women go to a bar and they are fighting over men, it makes it much easier for the men. If two women are very close and they act as… it makes it very difficult for the men to pull one over on anybody.

People get a sense that something is really wrong in government and in our culture. There is a corruption, not only in politics, but of spirit as well, when people are so quick to be violent with one another. I think everybody would like to be able to find a solution to make things better. We have the desire to reform inside of us, and we get frustrated because we don’t know how to change things, even if it comes to our own behavior. Sometimes you get frustrated because you don’t know how to stop that thing that you know is either hurtful to yourself or someone else.

With more mainstream filmmaking, the problem is who’s making the decisions. They’re not artists. The key creative decisions are being made by lawyers and accountants—that’s a very precarious situation. It’s precarious because it really does matter. Icons are being made and manufactured. People say it’s just a movie—but it’s not.

[Speaking about her dedication to advocating for LGBT rights] I think after playing Bette Porter on The L Word for six years I felt like an honorary member of the community. They are not just gay issues. They affect everybody because they affect the fabric of our community. I am in a position to be helpful...people are indoctrinated and they have their point of view but hopefully slowly but surely we can help change the paradigm. That's what I hope for and it's happening little by little. It's not easy.

We can have the final word on hate, neglect, disease and all the other insidious characters that still script their way into our stories...for now, but not forever.

“I’ve had my letters from klansmen, believe me...I could always navigate it. I don’t know if that’s just because I was conditioned to navigate it. But I always could. It just made me determined to work even more...Every single thing is narrative. Our understanding of things is a narrative. It’s the narrative of who’s in power. It’s the narrative of the person in the bodega down the street. What is the story that I’m telling myself? Am I telling myself the story that my teachers told me that I was? Am I telling myself the story that my parents told me that I was? How do I come to the narrative that serves my highest good?

I believe that people want to turn from fear towards hope, from divisiveness towards unity, from intolerance to an understanding that we all belong to one great community. Within all the chaos, within the despair, the not knowing, the anger, the anxiety, there is always the possibility for change. There is a seed of hope. And I'm not talking about a pie-in-the-sky kind of hope, but a kind of hope that calls on each and every one of us to stand up and be counted — a kind of hope that calls on each and every one of us to give the very best of ourselves — not just for our own benefit, but for the benefit of all of us, collectively.

When I was younger, I enjoyed being strong, and I loved it when my heart was very strong, but I think it was also about submitting to the cultural idea that if you're a 22-year-old woman, you have to look a certain way. I'm not into that anymore. But I do appreciate it when my clothes fit.

The ways in which we are similar are far more numerous than the ways in which we are different.

Love is the greatest light, the brightest torch, and will always be the greatest instrument of change.

[On cancer] One of the problems is that the notion of cancer has been so normalized. You hear about it so often, and it's not ok... it's not ok to normalize this disease. And with all of the pinkwashing that goes on —where companies are selling products based on breast cancer month — it's a lovely gesture, but consumers get so used to it that it becomes more normal.

It behooves all of us to have everyone experience their deepest, most beautiful, most profound and powerful self, because those people are more apt to give their gift to everyone else rather than shudder in fear.

[On the message of the Dalai Lama] We are in a very important time, where it’s clear that we live…in a pluralistic society. And certainly the Internet has made it clear that the actions of one group of people on one side of the globe can instantaneously affect the actions of another group people on the other side of the globe. So in this time when we are all so interconnected, the idea of practicing tolerance and non-discrimination doesn’t mean that you weaken yourself or that you weaken your society. On the contrary, I think it means that you’re able to strengthen yourself and your society.

[Speaking about the US military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy] The health of a democracy is directly dependent on hearing the voices of its individual citizens. Silence is destructive. What could mar our safety more than this restrictive policy that requires its citizens' silence? What could mar our safety more than this restrictive policy that quietly attacks its own citizens' very selfhood out of fear? What keeps us truly unsafe as a country on a day-to-day basis is our inability to look inside and experience ourselves as a multitude, as a complexity. And as sure as I'm standing here, things are not always black or white, but sometimes they can be both.

…The L Word reaffirmed that good storytelling has a way of creating community. Fans everywhere have been connecting with each other online, in public and at home-viewing parties.