Salma Hayek Quotes

Before you do anything, think. If you do something to try and impress someone, to be loved, accepted or even to get someone's attention, stop and think. So many people are busy trying to create an image, they die in the process. Sleeping with the wrong person is one thing, but not using a condom because you want to please someone, or because you're in a romantic bubble, is another. … I wish we weren't so busy trying to impress people.

I'm very lucky I didn't have it easy, because I've learned so much from having to figure out everything on my own and create things for myself. Now I can teach what I've learned to the next generation. I'm not just going to be the pretty face that disappears. I've learnt how to produce, to direct, to write. I'm not disposable so easily anymore. When I am 60, I can keep directing. I have the potential to really, truly have a voice that makes a difference.

The biggest thing [Frida] brought into my life was this peacefulness. I still get passionate about things, but my passion is not so scattered and it's not needy. It's a lot more powerful because it comes with this groundedness and peacefulness. That it's about the process, not about the results.

It's nice to have a relationship, but women have become addicted. You can have a relationship with God. With nature. With dogs. With yourself. And yes, you can also have a relationship with a man, but if it's going to be a shitty one, it's better to have a relationship with your flowers. I know so many lonely women who are married! You have to know the worth of your existence regardless of a man, regardless of an emotional love affair, even regardless of a career. Why should these things validate you as a human being?

Isn't it sad? In our world, women also don't support other women enough — how often do we really work together to make a difference? We are sometimes so vicious toward one another. We want to be independent women, but we really don't know who we are as women. It's about us taking control, because we tend to just blame. We complain about the world, but we are still not loving toward other women.

You have to be able to walk away from a relationship when it's time to walk away —and you have to teach your children this. It's the best way to love your children, because then they'll learn this from you — that you had the courage to walk away from a relationship when you were unhappy. You have to do what you have to do. And the children have to understand it. I think we have to teach this to our boys and our girls when they are young — 11, 12. They need to understand that you got in a situation when you were too young, when you didn't understand what you wanted, and because you listened to everyone else. Your children may not listen to you — so you also have to be brave enough to respect their dreams. … I think everybody knows this. We have an uncomfortable feeling for situations we are in, but we don't understand why we are uncomfortable. And then we want to know what would be the other option.

I wanted to win it for one specific reason — to send the Oscar to the Frida Kahlo House in Mexico, where Frida herself once lived. It's going to bring a tear to my eye now. I wanted every Mexican who walked into that museum to remember that what motivated me to make this movie, to dream this dream, had everything to do with where I came from — and I didn't stop dreaming until I finished the film. But the dream was the movie, not the Oscar.

When you open a door for others to have an opinion on your relationship, it can be dangerous. Find what you need, not what everyone else wants for you. Women have been taught that in order to have a place in the world, an identity, they must marry and have children. If that's the life you truly want, great. But for many women, marriage is only about needing the world to know that someone desires them enough to say, "Here's a contract to prove that I love you and will commit to you for the rest of my life." For these women, no contract equals no validation — and, thus, no reason for existing.

I'm going to tell you something: There's an element to that passion that I always leave out and that I have recently learned to understand, and it has helped me a lot. … I was okay if it didn't happen. … I didn't realize this before. As long as I knew I did my very, very best, I was okay. I was so okay that when I made the transition from Mexico to Los Angeles, I said to myself I have something now. Is it what I want? No. I was making money, I was an actress, and I was famous. It looked like it's what I wanted, but it was not. And I was wise enough to recognize it. It's what others would think that I'd want, and sometimes that makes you feel it's good enough... To be able to brag a lot on life — that's everybody's dream... But is it your dream? And it wasn't my dream. And so I said that I'm going to leave it. This means I go there, and maybe it doesn't happen. And I am trading this, which looks like it's great, for this nothing that could be anything. … And then I was excited about being brave about it and saying, "What I left didn't grab me by the balls."

At night I wake up and think, What color will make me feel better when I soak in the bathtub for an hour? I want everyone who's dreaming of a glamorous life to know that I'd trade a good bath any day for the heels, the hair, the makeup, the tight dresses, the photographs, the small talk.

It's good to be sexy, but when that's all they can see — no.

I had been already trying to do Frida, but I would sit on my sorrows because it was so difficult. But now I was learning new things. And so I thought, this is what I want to do. I want to do one movie that if I die the next day, I know I left one thing in this world that I was very proud of, that other people can see, that meant something to me, that had my voice. Because God forbid I die tomorrow, I'm the bombshell for the rest of my existence. … Then I became very angry I said, I have become what they decided I am. When did I fall in this trap? Somebody decided I was this, and I became that. And I said, "I'm going to change it now. I'm going to define myself."

I had an acting teacher who once told me that you could never really create from comfort. To do well as an actress, you have to push yourself to the edge. When you're comfortable, you're still on your ass. Sometimes we sit on our ass even with things we don't like. The whining, the crying, the becoming the victim, the this-town-doesn't-like-me-because-I'm-Mexican could've all made me say, "That's it — racism takes care of all my problems." … I think that's why it's harder for us to succeed, because we have a beautiful, comfortable crutch. It's right there, available.

I want to direct a movie in Mexico, in Spanish. The story is about how when we're really young, our dreams are colorful and big and abstract and interesting and imaginative. As the realities of life hit, our dreams become so common. To dream big doesn't necessarily mean to imagine becoming the biggest movie star in the world. Dreaming big is about taking the simplest thing in life and enjoying it — and seeing it as the biggest thing that can possibly exist. … I work in an industry that is the first to kill this ability because everything is so celebrity oriented. I am part of a cancer. In my world, you have to be so beautiful, so skinny, so rich, so famous — and I don't believe you really have to be any of those things. You simply have to be who you are.

Yes, I'm beautiful … I am beautiful and famous — and yet the things I like about myself have nothing to do with that, because I don't use wealth and beauty to define myself. People think I'm more beautiful than I am because they see me on magazine covers — but go to nearly any town, and you'd find prettier women. And though I'm well known now, I might not be famous one day —but I'd still be happy. I do have money, but I could be richer. I just don't want to pay the price some are willing to pay to have more money. I live in a small house. I'm not the glamour girl who wears makeup every day. I live a wonderful life, and I lack for nothing. Maybe that does make it easier for me to say, "Be who you are" — but I always tell people they shouldn't be too impressed with wealth and fame. They shouldn't worship it. I am in this machine, but I haven't completely given my soul to it.