Top 120 Jennette McCurdy Quotes (2026 Update)

1. “Maybe when I have a slip, I can acknowledge how disappointing and frustrating it is without getting caught in the shame spiral. Without letting that spiral lead to more slips, and more slips, and more slips, until they’ve become a slide. Maybe now a slip can be, as Jeff says, just that. A slip.”

— Jennette McCurdy

2. “Trying to reason with the unreasonable is unreasonable.”

— Jennette McCurdy

3. “Writing is the opposite of performing to me. Performing feels inherently fake. Writing feels inherently real.”

— Jennette McCurdy

4. “To ensure that you do well at your Princess Paradise Park callback. If you do what I tell you to do, you will eventually book the role. When this happens, your mother will be happy and all of your family’s problems will be solved.”

— Jennette McCurdy

5. “I yearn to know the people I love deeply and intimately – without context, without boxes – and I yearn for them to know me that way, too.”

— Jennette McCurdy

6. “And if my entire life and point of view and identity have been built on a false foundation, confronting that false foundation would mean destroying and rebuilding a new foundation from the ground up. I have no idea how to go about doing this.”

— Jennette McCurdy

7. “He’s a distant man with an emotional range of a potato.”

— Jennette McCurdy

8. “The air in the house felt like a held breath.”

— Jennette McCurdy

9. “He has no concept of loss. I feel like the world is divided into two types of people: people who know loss and people who don’t. And whenever I encounter someone who doesn’t, I disregard them.”

— Jennette McCurdy

10. “The fragility of Mom’s life is the center of mine.”

— Jennette McCurdy

11. “I have always felt reduced to the number on the scale – maybe because, in a way, it’s easier. Defining yourself is hard. Complicated. Messy. Letting the number on the scale do it for you is simple. Direct. Straightforward.”

— Jennette McCurdy

12. “I tried desperately to understand and know my mother – what made her sad, what made her happy, and on and on and on – at the expense of ever really knowing myself. Without Mom around, I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what I need. I don’t know who I am. And I certainly don’t know what to wish for.”

— Jennette McCurdy

13. “Why haven’t I heard the Holy Ghost? I’d ask in my prayers. Is there something I’ve done wrong that has made me not deserve him? Is it my impure thoughts about Frankie Muniz?”

— Jennette McCurdy

14. “Church is a beautiful, peaceful, three-hour weekly reprieve from the place I hate most: home.”

— Jennette McCurdy

15. “Maybe it’s because she didn’t want to be a dancer growing up, she wanted to be an actress, and maybe Mom only sits in when I’m being the thing she wanted to be.”

— Jennette McCurdy

16. “I felt violated, yet I had no voice, no ability to express that.”

— Jennette McCurdy

17. “She wanted this. And I wanted her to have it. I wanted her to be happy. But now that I have it, I realize that she’s happy and I’m not. Her happiness came at the cost of mine. I feel robbed and exploited.”

— Jennette McCurdy

18. “Joe turns on his side, facing away from me, and clutches a pillow tight to his chest. He takes a long breath. “What have I done?” he asks.”

— Jennette McCurdy

19. “Anorexia is regal, in control, all powerful. Bulimia is out of control, chaotic, pathetic, poor mans anorexia. I have friends with anorexia and I can tell they pity me.”

— Jennette McCurdy

20. “Mom didn’t get better. But I will.”

— Jennette McCurdy

21. “I always forget that trying to reason with the unreasonable is... unreasonable.”

— Jennette McCurdy

22. “I was never aiming for bulimia. I was attempting to have anorexia, but I couldn’t keep it up without my mom.”

— Jennette McCurdy

23. “I hate being known as Sam. I absolutely hate it.”

— Jennette McCurdy

24. “Anyway, what was I saying?” he asks while he keeps massaging me. My shoulders do have a lot of knots in them, but I don’t want The Creator to be the one rubbing them out. I want to say something, to tell him to stop, but I’m so scared of offending him. “Oh, right,” he says, remembering his train of thought without my help. “Every kid out there would kill for an opportunity like the one you’ve got. You’re very lucky, Jennetter.”

— Jennette McCurdy

25. “My scale has defined me for so long. The number it shows tells me whether I’m succeeding or failing, whether I’m trying hard enough or not, whether I’m good or bad.”

— Jennette McCurdy

26. “It’s so annoying, eating-disorder brain. Anytime I’m having a conversation with someone over a meal, there’s another conversation happening internally – judgments and criticisms and self-loathing that press on me with such severity. They’re a brutal distraction. I can never be present with whoever I’m with. My focus is always more on the food than the person.”

— Jennette McCurdy

27. “Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can’t we be honest about them?”

— Jennette McCurdy

28. “I feel like the world is divided into two types of people: people who know loss and people who don’t.”

— Jennette McCurdy

29. “I was conditioned to believe any boundary I wanted was a betrayal of her, so I stayed silent. Cooperative.”

— Jennette McCurdy

30. “I’m abusing my body every day. I’m miserable. I’m depleted. And yet the compliments keep pouring in.”

— Jennette McCurdy

31. “Regardless, I’m discovering just how powerful of a tool it is to not love someone. Loving someone is vulnerable. It’s sensitive. It’s tender. And I get lost in them. If I love someone, I start to disappear.”

— Jennette McCurdy

32. “This house is an embarrassment. This house is shameful. I hate this house. I hate how being inside it makes me feel tense and anxious.”

— Jennette McCurdy

33. “I could buy some plants.” I shrug. The amount of times I’ve thought buying plants might make a difference in my life is staggering.”

— Jennette McCurdy

34. “I’ve become a bitter person and I’m resigned to that fact. I can’t change my circumstances, so why try to change who I’ve become as a result of them?”

— Jennette McCurdy

35. “Sorry,” I say while I poop and Mom wets a paper towel with water. I’m embarrassed she still insists on wiping my butt. I tried to tell her recently that now that I’m eight, I think I can handle it, but she looked like she was gonna cry and said she needs.”

— Jennette McCurdy

36. “I proudly show my half-eaten portions to Mom after every meal. She beams. Each Sunday, she weighs me and measures my thighs with a measuring tape.”

— Jennette McCurdy

37. “I’m so unimpressed by people. Even irritated by them. At times even disgusted by them.”

— Jennette McCurdy

38. “I’m done being a good sport. I resent being a good sport. If I wasn’t such a good sport to begin with, I wouldn’t be in this predicament in the first place.”

— Jennette McCurdy

39. “I can’t let Mom know I’m into purple, since Mom prefers pink. She would be heartbroken if I suddenly announce that I’ve switched my favorite color to one that isn’t also hers. It is an honor that Mom cares about me so much that something like me having my own favorite color would devastate her. True love.”

— Jennette McCurdy

40. “My mother emotionally, physically and mentally abused me in ways that will forever impact me. She gave me breast and vaginal exams until I was seventeen years old. These “exams” made my body stiff with discomfort. I felt violated, yet I had no voice, no ability to express that.”

— Jennette McCurdy

41. “I’m realizing how much shame spirals have contributed to my issues. I’m so tired of swearing over and over again that “this time I’m done for real.” Maybe this acceptance of slips is the missing piece. Maybe when I have a slip, I can acknowledge how disappointing and frustrating it is without getting caught in the shame spiral. Without letting that spiral lead to more slips, and more slips, and more slips, until they’ve become a slide.”

— Jennette McCurdy

42. “I’ve pretended for my job for so long, and for my mom for so long, and now I’m starting to think I’m pretending for myself too.”

— Jennette McCurdy

43. “The years that you’re supposed to spend finding yourself, I was spending pretending to be other people. The years that you’re supposed to spend building character, I was spending building characters.”

— Jennette McCurdy

44. “A pushover is a bad thing to be, but an opinionated pushover is a worse thing to be. A pushover is nice and goes along with it, whatever it is. An opinionated pushover acts nice and goes along with it, but while quietly brooding and resentful. I am an opinionated pushover.”

— Jennette McCurdy

45. “Mom. And I can tell immediately by her body language and facial expression – upright posture, lifted chin, gritted teeth, widened eyes – that she’s not upset, she’s not angry, she’s livid. She’s about to blow. Oh no. There’s gotta be something I can do.”

— Jennette McCurdy

46. “And if my entire life and point of view and identity have been built on a false foundation, confronting that false foundation would mean destroying it and rebuilding a new foundation from the ground up. I have no idea how to go about doing this. I have no idea how to go about life without doing it in the shadow of my mother, without my every move being dictated by her wants, her needs, her approval.”

— Jennette McCurdy

47. “I’m filled with so much shame and anxiety every time after I eat, I literally don’t know what to do to make myself feel better except throw up. And after I’m done, I half do. Half of me feels depleted, exhausted, like there’s nothing left, which is helpful. The other half of me now has a splitting headache, a sore throat, vomit sliding down my arm and tangled in my hair, and even more shame on top of the initial shame since now I’ve not only eaten but thrown up, too. Bulimia is not the answer.”

— Jennette McCurdy

48. “I’m allowed to hate someone else’s dream, even if it’s my reality.”

— Jennette McCurdy

49. “I don’t like knowing people in the context of things. Oh, that’s the person I work out with. That’s the person I’m in a book club with. That’s the person I did that show with. Because once the context ends, so does the friendship. I yearn to know the people I love deeply and intimately – without context, without boxes –.”

— Jennette McCurdy

50. “It’s easier to be angry than to feel the pain underneath it.”

— Jennette McCurdy