Top 120 Jodie Foster Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Normal is not something to aspire to, it’s something to get away from.”

— Jodie Foster

2. “I will always love psychology, and the basis of psychology is family.”

— Jodie Foster

3. “In the end, winning is sleeping better.”

— Jodie Foster

4. “If I fail, at least I will have failed my way.”

— Jodie Foster

5. “Privacy. Someday, in the future, people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was.”

— Jodie Foster

6. “I think ‘destiny’ is just a fancy word for a psychological pattern.”

— Jodie Foster

7. “It’s an interesting combination: Having a great fear of being alone, and having a desperate need for solitude and the solitary experience. That’s always been a tug of war for me.”

— Jodie Foster

8. “Let how you live your life stand for something, no matter how small and incidental it may seem.”

— Jodie Foster

9. “All of the thinking and planning that you do to get there, and then, in one minute, in one second, it just doesn’t matter. It goes out the window. You either got it or you didn’t. There is something kind of refreshing about that.”

— Jodie Foster

10. “I’m not interested in being perfect when im older. Im interested in having a narrative. It’s the narrative that’s really the most beautiful thing about women.”

— Jodie Foster

11. “I cannot believe in God when there is no scientific evidence for the existence of a supreme being and creator.”

— Jodie Foster

12. “I want to change the system from within the system. And that means focusing and specializing.”

— Jodie Foster

13. “I’m kind of a chatterbox and I talk really fast.”

— Jodie Foster

14. “There are 400 billion stars out there, just in our galaxy alone. If just one out of a million of those had planets, and just one in a million of those had life, and just one out of a million of those had intelligent life, there would be literally millions of civilizations out there.”

— Jodie Foster

15. “Caitriona Balfe, who is Irish, is also in my movie. I asked her to play her Irish accent in the movie, but her own brogue is so faint that I had to keep pumping it up.”

— Jodie Foster

16. “Love and respect are the most important aspects of parenting, and of all relationships.”

— Jodie Foster

17. “There is no direct evidence, so how could you ask me to believe in God...”

— Jodie Foster

18. “Being understood is not the most essential thing in life.”

— Jodie Foster

19. “I’d like to be Dakota Fanning when I get young.”

— Jodie Foster

20. “I like to be in a different place when I make a movie so that I can’t really focus on anything else, and that is your world.”

— Jodie Foster

21. “Just to set the record straight, a salary for a given on-screen performance does not include the right to invade anyone’s privacy, to destroy someone’s sense of self.”

— Jodie Foster

22. “I love European movies and I kind of grew up on European films.”

— Jodie Foster

23. “I have, in some ways, saved characters that have been marginalized by society by playing them – and having them still have dignity and still survive, still get through it.”

— Jodie Foster

24. “I’m a technician. I don’t go for the get-into-the-role stuff. I read the lines and play the scenes.”

— Jodie Foster

25. “I fantasize about having a manual job where I can come home at night, read a book and not feel responsible for what will happen the next day.”

— Jodie Foster

26. “I like to nap. I do like to sleep. Sometimes I sleep in between takes.”

— Jodie Foster

27. “Look, it’s terrible, I know, but weakness really, really bugs me, to the point that if there is a wounded bird on the sidewalk, I look at it and I go: I think I’ll just kick it.”

— Jodie Foster

28. “I was never the ingenue or the pretty girlfriend of Tom Cruise in a movie. I didn’t have that career, so I don’t have to compete on that level.”

— Jodie Foster

29. “Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it’s not acceptable.”

— Jodie Foster

30. “Being twenty-something is all about taking it in: eating it, drinking it, and spitting out the seeds later. It’s about being fearless, and stupid, and dangerous, and unfocused, and abandoned. It’s about being in it, not on top of it.”

— Jodie Foster

31. “My definition of a friend is somebody who adores you even though they know the things you’re most ashamed of.”

— Jodie Foster

32. “I absolutely love religions and the rituals. Even though I don’t believe in God, we celebrate pretty much every religion in our family with the kids.”

— Jodie Foster

33. “It’s very hard for me to get a new car. It’s really hard for me to get a new house. It’s really hard for me to move on from the things that give me stability.”

— Jodie Foster

34. “Sometimes, you really don’t understand why something is important to you until you get halfway through the movie – or maybe even all the way through.”

— Jodie Foster

35. “As an actor, I’m attracted to drama; as a director, it’s humor – because it’s the story of my life, and I can’t be that serious about it. Being alone is a big theme in all my movies, both as a director and as an actress.”

— Jodie Foster

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

36. “My kids are young and my life with them is really stimulating and really full and significant.”

— Jodie Foster

37. “I don’t need to be Tom Cruise. I just need to work forever.”

— Jodie Foster

38. “My mom was always late. It drove me crazy as a child. So I’m always on time – or early.”

— Jodie Foster

39. “People are always surprised when I say that I’m an atheist.”

— Jodie Foster

40. “I wish that I spoke more languages. I speak a couple languages, but not well enough to really dub myself. French is really the only one, and it’s a difficult thing.”

— Jodie Foster

41. “I don’t know why people think child actresses in particular are screwed up. I see kids everywhere who are totally bored. I’ve never been bored a day in my life.”

— Jodie Foster

42. “There is nothing in this world that I am prouder of than my ability to feel, to survive and, yes, to be a fool for what I love and believe in.”

— Jodie Foster

43. “I saw leaving college as an opportunity to do something different with my life. I always thought that becoming an academic was going to be my path.”

— Jodie Foster

44. “I wish people could get over the hang-up of subtitles, although at the same time, you know, that’s kind of why I’m kind of pro dubbing.”

— Jodie Foster

45. “As I’ve said before, and I still hold to, I truly am the most boring person alive. And if there was a great investigation to be found at the end of the resume, it would be, the most boring person alive.”

— Jodie Foster

46. “I had to take my makeup off at work every night. I wasn’t allowed to do it at home because my mom said that when your work day is done, you’re done with work.”

— Jodie Foster

47. “As time goes on, I will play characters who get older: I don’t want to be some Botoxed weirdo.”

— Jodie Foster

48. “What the digital age has offered us, in terms of connectivity and transparency, is that all of these people from weird places in the world are all talking to each other, at four in the morning, and are sharing ideas. There’s more openness than has ever been known, so that’s a good thing.”

— Jodie Foster

49. “But the reason I became, why I wanted to be in the business was because there was Midnight Cowboy.”

— Jodie Foster

50. “It’s a skill that people are born with. Either you’re a focuser or you’re a multitasky person. I am a full-focus person.”

— Jodie Foster