190+ Zooey Deschanel Quotes

Zooey Deschanel is an American actress, singer, and songwriter. She was born on January 17, 1980, in Los Angeles, California. Deschanel comes from a showbiz family as her father, Caleb Deschanel is a cinematographer, and her mother, Mary Jo Deschanel, is an actress.

Deschanel gained recognition for her roles in independent films such as “Almost Famous” (2000) and “All the Real Girls” (2003). However, she achieved mainstream success and became widely known for her portrayal of Summer Finn in the romantic comedy-drama film “(500) Days of Summer” (2009).

One of Deschanel’s most prominent roles is as Jessica Day in the television sitcom “New Girl,” which aired from 2011 to 2018. Her performance in the series earned her critical acclaim and several award nominations. Deschanel’s portrayal of Jess, a quirky and offbeat teacher, showcased her comedic talent and helped establish her as a popular actress on television.

Aside from acting, Zooey Deschanel is also a talented singer and musician. She is one half of the musical duo She & Him, which she formed with M. Ward in 2006. The duo has released several albums, featuring Deschanel’s sweet and melodic singing style.

Throughout her career, Deschanel has received various accolades, including Grammy Award nominations for her music and Golden Globe nominations for her acting. She is known for her distinct style, often described as retro-inspired and featuring a mix of vintage and modern elements.

Zooey Deschanel Quotes

1. “Nothing’s better than a picnic.”
— Zooey Deschanel

2. “It’s not about women acting like man, it’s about women acting like woman and being sucsessful.”
— Zooey Deschanel

3. “It’s never too late for a coffee. After all it’s morning somewhere in the world.”
— Zooey Deschanel

4. “I think it’s better to have your personal life and your work life separate. That way they don’t corrupt each other, so to speak.”
— Zooey Deschanel

5. “In an ideal world no one would talk before 10am. People would just hug, because waking up is really hard.”
— Zooey Deschanel

6. “Proving people wrong is probably my favorite thing to do.”
— Zooey Deschanel

7. “I’m a person who has a lot of energy. So, yes, I don’t really stop to rest or de-stress. I just keep going. I figure that if you don’t stop, then you’ll never notice how tired you are.”
— Zooey Deschanel

8. “You don’t have to wear expensive clothes to look good.”
— Zooey Deschanel

9. “Summer has always been my favorite season. I feel happier.”
— Zooey Deschanel

10. “I will wear tights even if it’s 100 degrees outside. Tights are my safety blanket.”
— Zooey Deschanel

11. “Nothing could be as hard as middle school.”
— Zooey Deschanel

12. “I need a coffee to go with my coffee.”
— Zooey Deschanel

13. “Don’t allow the coldness and fear of others to tarnish your perfectly vulnerable beating heart.”
— Zooey Deschanel

14. “I don’t like plain nails. I get sad.”
— Zooey Deschanel

15. “For those of us who try to keep remembering, Try to do our better than our best. Think of all the children in the drifts of snow. Winners never quit, but winters never rest.”
— Zooey Deschanel

16. “For me, writing is 75 percent procrastinating and 25 percent actually sitting down and working.”
— Zooey Deschanel

17. “I always wanted to be normal. I tried really hard, but it’s like I try so hard and then people still say I’m offbeat. I’ve learnt to accept that and take advantage of it as an actor.”
— Zooey Deschanel

18. “You can’t know if someone’s really your best friend. I think the measure of that is you could not see each other for six months and then when you see each other you laugh the same way you did when you were a little kid.”
— Zooey Deschanel

19. “To be a gluten-free vegan is, like, the most difficult thing you can possibly be.”
— Zooey Deschanel

20. “Nothing is more powerful than allowing yourself to truly be affected by things. Whether it’s a song, a stranger, a mountain, a tea kettle, an article, a sentence, a footstep -feel it all. Look around you. All of this is for you. Take it and have gratitude. Give it and feel love.”
— Zooey Deschanel

21. “Well I know that you worry a lot about things you can’t control There are so many things we’d like to have But we just cannot hold You’ve got to be kind to yourself You’ve got to be kind to yourself.”
— Zooey Deschanel

22. “I like old movies, screwball comedies, vintage clothes, and basically I’m an old-fashioned gal.”
— Zooey Deschanel

23. “I think my knowledge of music theory is rooted in jazz theory, and a lot of the writers of standards – Rodgers and Hart, and Gershwin.”
— Zooey Deschanel

24. “I like to play the ukulele, but I’m not, like, awesome at it. I mostly play the piano and the guitar.”
— Zooey Deschanel

25. “Everyone needs a theme song! It should make you feel like a million dollars.”
— Zooey Deschanel

26. “I just sort of follow my bliss, so to speak, and then I see where that takes me.”
— Zooey Deschanel

27. “It’s an addiction. I love clothes. I like to go down Melrose and look in all the windows and I go to different flea markets. I have lots of costumes. You never know when you’re going to have to dress up like a milkmaid from the 1600s.”
— Zooey Deschanel

28. “Humor is a part of spirituality.”
— Zooey Deschanel

29. “When you work on a movie, especially an independent movie, it’s a lot of work to make it! It’s not just our job as actors – so many people are working so hard, and even the littlest movie takes a lot of work.”
— Zooey Deschanel

30. “Why don’t we just sit and stare and do nothing? Nothing at all for a while I like the way you smile I could be your state and I could be your nation It doesn’t get better than home, now does it?”
— Zooey Deschanel

31. “It’s strange because a lot of people are like, ‘You can’t change human nature-people are inherently negative.’ I don’t think that’s true. If you expect the best from people, they’ll step up.”
— Zooey Deschanel

32. “I love singing Christmas carols. I know every harmony to every music-hall Christmas song.”
— Zooey Deschanel

33. “Everyone has the heartbreak that shapes them in a way that they could never go back to the innocence that they had before.”
— Zooey Deschanel

34. “Take it back Oh, take it back I don’t want your lovin’, anymore Let me live Oh, let me live It’s not you who I sing for.”
— Zooey Deschanel

35. “I’m not cynical about love at all. I’m very practical. I think love takes up a lot of time.”
— Zooey Deschanel

36. “For those of you who tried, but didn’t make it, Settle down it’s never what you think. The summit doesn’t differ from the deep, dark valley, And the valley doesn’t differ from the kitchen sink.”
— Zooey Deschanel

37. “There’s nothing like having great friends when you see them, you get that joy – that you can’t really compare it with anything else.”
— Zooey Deschanel

38. “I want to be a freaking feminist and wear a freaking Peter Pan collar. So freaking what?”
— Zooey Deschanel

39. “Oh, me? I’m not 80% water. I’m 80% coffee, and a little bit of sass.”
— Zooey Deschanel

40. “There’s a vegan and gluten-free bakery called BabyCakes that I love. They’ve got shops in New York and Los Angeles. Their stuff is amazing.”
— Zooey Deschanel

41. “When I was a little bit younger The strain I was under could make me cry. Now I’m a little bit older, A little bit bolder, Never so shy.”
— Zooey Deschanel

42. “When I exercise, I like to take lots of different classes because I want to really apply myself and feel like I’m learning a new skill. Not that I ever want to have to demonstrate any of those skills!”
— Zooey Deschanel

43. “Always the aim for me is making people feel like they are not alone. That’s just the greatest feeling.”
— Zooey Deschanel

44. “There’s thieves among us Painting the walls All kinds of lies, and lies I never told it all.”
— Zooey Deschanel

45. “The Internet’s like one big bathroom wall with a lot of people who anonymously can say really mean things. It’s fine, I believe in freedom of speech and I think people should think what they want, but I don’t care to hear it.”
— Zooey Deschanel

46. “My sister was always very motherly, babysitting and stuff.”
— Zooey Deschanel

47. “I like to learn things slow I like learning alot I like to get it all again and in the end You know you get what you got.”
— Zooey Deschanel

48. “Women I admired growing up – Debra Winger, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep – were all beautiful and thin, but not too thin. There are a lot of actresses who are unhealthy-skinny – much, much too skinny. You can’t Pilates to that.”
— Zooey Deschanel

49. “I would watch Wizard of Oz, like every day, when I was two. I had a hard time understanding that I couldn’t go into the film, because it felt so real to me.”
— Zooey Deschanel

50. “I am always early to work but sometimes late to other things.”
— Zooey Deschanel

51. “California is a great big nation of one They never knew what they wanted ’til it was already gone.”
— Zooey Deschanel

52. “I remember having this friend in school who said she didn’t like the Beach Boys. And in that moment I knew we couldn’t be friends anymore.”
— Zooey Deschanel

53. “Change is hard, I should know. I should know.”
— Zooey Deschanel

54. “I want to be where your heart is home I want to see you with the light in the morning There’s never been such a beautiful warning to me, to me.”
— Zooey Deschanel

55. “I just feel like growing up in Los Angeles, you learn, ‘Well you’re never gonna be the prettiest girl in the room, so just don’t even try.’ I mean, I care about being pretty, but it’s not my most valued thing.”
— Zooey Deschanel

56. “It’s nice that there are movies and songs about romance – it’s what motivates us as human beings. I’m all for being brainwashed by rom-coms.”
— Zooey Deschanel

57. “I grew up believing my sister was from the planet Neptune and had been sent down to Earth to kill me.”
— Zooey Deschanel

58. “I’m into sincerity in music and sincerity in art. If it doesn’t feel true, I don’t want to do it. Things that are too dramatic scare me. I think that’s why I don’t always fit into the world of performing arts.”
— Zooey Deschanel

59. “I get embarrassed a lot of times getting attention, but I like being onstage. Do you know what I mean? If I’m in a crowd of people and they’re all looking at me, I will feel embarrassed. It’s a strange dichotomy.”
— Zooey Deschanel

60. “I hate camping, but I love summer camp.”
— Zooey Deschanel

61. “Oh my God, there are so many songs I wish I had written. ‘Waters of March,’ I wish I had written ‘My Baby Just Cares for Me,’ I wish I had written ‘This Will Be Our Year,’ I mean, there’s millions of them. ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice?’”
— Zooey Deschanel

62. “I did not have a date to the prom. I went to my junior prom alone, and my senior prom, I was doing my first movie. I went in a limousine with, like, a bunch of people to my junior prom. It was a group date.”
— Zooey Deschanel

63. “I don’t know why femininity should be associated with weakness. Women should be free to express who they are without thinking, ‘I need to act like a man, or I need to tone it down to be successful.’ That’s a very good way to keep women down.”
— Zooey Deschanel

64. “Classic Christmas cookies are really time-consuming. Instead, make a bar you can bake in a pan and just cut up, like a brownie or a blondie or a shortbread, which still has that Christmas vibe.”
— Zooey Deschanel

65. “For some reason, people look at me and laugh. I don’t know why.”
— Zooey Deschanel

66. “I was doing about five movies a year for many years. I was just so tired. I walked around feeling like a Mack truck hit me.”
— Zooey Deschanel

67. “I wanted to be a child actor so bad that every day I’d beg my parents if I could audition, but my mom said, ‘Not until you can drive yourself to auditions.’”
— Zooey Deschanel

68. “For those of you who thought you’d be forgotten, The friends you’ve made will try their best, to make it so. Think of all the beauty that you left behind you. You can take it if you want it, and then let it go.”
— Zooey Deschanel

69. “You can’t expect to make no effort. You still have to make the effort and be kind and understanding.”
— Zooey Deschanel

70. “It’s very much a piece of myself when I write a song. I don’t mean to say it’s very personal, like the lyrics mean something personal to me. When I write a song, that’s my taste in music – my taste in chord progressions and melodies.”
— Zooey Deschanel

71. “I’m a very positive person. I get excited easily, and I like to jump around.”
— Zooey Deschanel

72. “The moment you sense someone is making something because they think people are gonna buy it or like it, it’s just so phony! The public has a nose for phony like nobody else.”
— Zooey Deschanel

73. “Well, my piano’s really beautiful. I actually have two pianos. I have a Yamaha upright from the ’60s that’s blond, wood, and black, and I also have one from the ’20s from Chicago – not a well-known brand or anything.”
— Zooey Deschanel

74. “Certain aspects of my personality are always going to come out on-screen. I guess that’s just me – if they say I’m quirky, I’m quirky. It’s better than being boring.”
— Zooey Deschanel

75. “I think the best comedies came out during the Depression. Personally.”
— Zooey Deschanel

76. “When I was 13, I wasn’t the coolest kid in my class, and that inner dork is a wonderful thing to have.”
— Zooey Deschanel

77. “I gravitate towards happy music. I love the Beach Boys.”
— Zooey Deschanel

78. “Love is individual to each person and I don’t think you can define it before experiencing it because it isn’t going to be the same for everybody.”
— Zooey Deschanel

79. “I love indie movies. I think that independent cinema is where it’s at and where a lot of trends begin. It’s where new filmmakers are breaking through.”
— Zooey Deschanel

80. “There are so many cute vintage dresses made out of synthetics from the ’60s and ’70s – but they’re so itchy and hot. It’s not worth it!”
— Zooey Deschanel

81. “There’s something about guitars, they’re just so big, you know what I mean? You’re just like, ‘Ugh!’ It just seems so overwhelming. And the ukulele is, like, the opposite of overwhelming.”
— Zooey Deschanel

82. “If ‘New Girl’ had been a movie, I don’t know whether I would have been given the opportunity to do it.”
— Zooey Deschanel

83. “I just like music that sounds like music. Not like machines and computers and things that you design to make things sound slick and perfect.”
— Zooey Deschanel

84. “I don’t know how to explain how, probably to my detriment, unself-promoting I am. I used to have a cabaret act and I didn’t even like to tell me people about that. I really hate selling myself.”
— Zooey Deschanel

85. “I think penguins are cute.”
— Zooey Deschanel

86. “I was never no, never no, never enough, But I can try, I can try to toughen up.”
— Zooey Deschanel

87. “Know what suits you. Now I understand proportion and recognise the shapes that look good on my figure.”
— Zooey Deschanel

88. “I went to Northwestern because I had gone to a really nontraditional high school. I was like, ‘It’d be cool to have a traditional college experience.’ Then I was like, ‘Oh, but none of these people understand what’s cool about me. My specialness is not appreciated in this place.’”
— Zooey Deschanel

89. “I never have time to have a dinner. I have to eat while I’m memorizing lines. The only way to maintain energy is to eat all day long. I must eat all day long.”
— Zooey Deschanel

90. “A lot of people work out to be skinny. That’s so boring, and it seems like a depressing goal for a modern woman.”
— Zooey Deschanel

91. “I think I’d say that my whole body of work is a reflection of who I am, but not any one specific thing.”
— Zooey Deschanel

92. “I find sadness and strife to be so much more interesting with an upbeat melody.”
— Zooey Deschanel

93. “From my perspective, probably women are won over by people who are sweet and respectful and courteous and kind and funny. I think those are the things that win women over.”
— Zooey Deschanel

94. “I’m not going to say I’m a big girl. I’m a very small person, but I’m a healthy weight. That might be a little weird for Hollywood.”
— Zooey Deschanel

95. “I think that it’s our responsibility to create a world in which girls can grow up and not have to limit their dreams or possibilities.”
— Zooey Deschanel

96. “I accidentally entered a youth pageant when I was 14. That’s like a beauty pageant, but without the beauty. It was terrible.”
— Zooey Deschanel

97. “I can’t go on Gawker. I actually think the writing is really funny, but there is a chance that somebody is undercutting me.”
— Zooey Deschanel

98. “Secretly, I think everyone who makes fun of California really does want to be in California.”
— Zooey Deschanel

99. “I listened to a lot of Joni Mitchell in high school. She was sort of an inspiration to me. I think she’s a great lyricist, and she makes interesting choices.”
— Zooey Deschanel

100. “No, I’ve been singing forever. I started out doing musicals. I think that was part of the reason why they gave me the part, because I sang.”
— Zooey Deschanel

101. “Not that there is anything wrong with confessional songwriting, there are plenty of people that do that I admire. I think it is great, it just isn’t how I do things.”
— Zooey Deschanel

102. “I like to make colored xeroxes of things. I clip out pictures of Liza Minelli and her husband from magazines and I fax them to people anonymously.”
— Zooey Deschanel

103. “I think I’m a fun flatmate. I’m always cheerful. I go on tour with my band so it’s 12 people on one bus and I feel like I’m the one who’s happy in the morning. I’m not a chaotic person, but I might slack off on doing the dishes from time to time.”
— Zooey Deschanel

104. “I like having a schedule. I tend to be the type of person that thrives on something being regular.”
— Zooey Deschanel

105. “I have had brown hair and bangs since I was 2. One year I dyed it blonde, which felt so weird.”
— Zooey Deschanel

106. “I did go through this period where girls would be mean and I had a lot of guy friends. But I’ve found as an adult the importance of having female and male friends.”
— Zooey Deschanel

107. “Sites like Funny or Die and College Humor are great, but I’d say it’s appealing to 80% men and 20% women.”
— Zooey Deschanel

108. “Modern recording has made it so that people can spend forever taking shortcuts and making everything uniform, but that strips music of what makes it exciting.”
— Zooey Deschanel

109. “In a lot of movies, you’ll see people on crazy dates, and you’re like, ‘No one would ever do that!’”
— Zooey Deschanel

110. “There are a lot of actors who will sit here and talk to you about characters – ‘He does this, and she’s a really interesting character because she does this.’ I’m not like that at all. I’m not an actory actor.”
— Zooey Deschanel

111. “I can’t even remember the first time I started singing.”
— Zooey Deschanel

112. “I don’t like business talkers, you know, people who are constantly like, ‘Blah blah blah movies.’ I find it incredibly boring.”
— Zooey Deschanel

113. “In my mind, I always think of myself as an underdog type.”
— Zooey Deschanel

114. “I’ve always straddled a weird line – there’s a lot of mainstream stuff that I love. At the same, I still feel like an outsider. I’m the outsider who’s on the inside.”
— Zooey Deschanel

115. “I like acting with no lines because all of a sudden you’re able to express things without always worrying about the text. It’s great to have a great text, but there’s a lot of stuff you can’t say in words, and I think there’s something really nice about good physical moments.”
— Zooey Deschanel

116. “I think the best comedic actors don’t play it for comedy, they play it for reality. Then you find it funny because it’s real. Playing the genre is the worst thing you can do – it’s embarrassing.”
— Zooey Deschanel

117. “I’m just being myself. There is not an ounce of me that believes any of that crap that they say. We can’t be feminine and be feminists and be successful? I want to be a f-king feminist and wear a f-king Peter Pan collar. So f-king what?”
— Zooey Deschanel

118. “I think making a movie or a record, the best things happen by accident – and those end up being the magic. Every time I’ve followed my gut it’s been better than when I’ve tried to do what I was supposed to do.”
— Zooey Deschanel

119. “I still have in me the same awareness when I was 12 and chubby and a girl was spitting in my face. I’m the same person.”
— Zooey Deschanel

120. “Being an actress can be a little like being a girl in the ’50s: You’re stuck waiting by the phone, hoping that the boy you like will call.”
— Zooey Deschanel

121. “We all know guys who’ve had their hearts broken in real life; we just don’t usually see it in the movies.”
— Zooey Deschanel

122. “I get really insecure because even though I can speak in musician’s terms, I don’t know as much as real musicians.”
— Zooey Deschanel

123. “If you can make a character likable that’s not very nice, that’s the challenge of the job.”
— Zooey Deschanel

124. “If I’m going to be ‘too’ anything, ‘too cute’ is fine. I love puppies. So what? Who hates puppies?”
— Zooey Deschanel

125. “I’m a person who gets better with practice. Getting older is awesome – because you get more practice.”
— Zooey Deschanel

126. “The average person tells a few white lies.”
— Zooey Deschanel

127. “Romantic comedies are usually about when love works.”
— Zooey Deschanel

128. “I think there’s a certain space people have decided I occupy – the funny-sidekick thing.”
— Zooey Deschanel

129. “I’m the worst at picking what movies are going to do well. I have no idea. I’m really surprised if a movie I like does well.”
— Zooey Deschanel

130. “Anyone who knows me knows that I am really into hair. I’m a real girly girl and love doing my hair and experimenting with different styles.”
— Zooey Deschanel

131. “My mom told me when I get compliments to cover my ears.”
— Zooey Deschanel

132. “I’m not playing a comedy. I want to be playing the truth of the moment, and then have the comedy come out.”
— Zooey Deschanel

133. “When you have endless time, you take all day to go to the grocery store. But, if you have to be at work for 14 hours a day, you manage your time better. I know I do.”
— Zooey Deschanel

134. “I wish I got invited to more luaus. I really do!”
— Zooey Deschanel

135. “Yes, exactly. I think that Christmas is always used at any point in the year to cheer us up, like each other up. We would use that to cheer each other up if we were in a sad mood or something, we’d just start talking about Christmas.”
— Zooey Deschanel

136. “I think that if you haven’t been to the grocery store in a really long time, it’s really easy to get very out of touch.”
— Zooey Deschanel

137. “I’ve always had a really great time being in movies and writing music when I get home. The more creative I am, the more it feeds into other creative aspects of my life.”
— Zooey Deschanel

138. “I appreciate a songwriter like Morrissey with so much restraint.”
— Zooey Deschanel

139. “I started out doing musicals.”
— Zooey Deschanel

140. “I wasn’t really the most charming person, socially – it took me a long time to develop my people skills – but the one place I was always comfortable was onstage, acting or singing.”
— Zooey Deschanel

141. “People sometimes say, ‘Oh, you were a movie star,’ and I’m like, ‘No, I was a supporting actress.’ I wasn’t an A-list actress, and I’m fine with that. I’m proud of what I did in film.”
— Zooey Deschanel

142. “You go to something like the Golden Globes, and it’s the most glamorous place you could ever be, but then you go home and you’re still like, ‘Urgh, this dress is too tight, I wanna take off these shoes and put on my pyjamas.’ At the end of the night all the glamour goes away and you’re just a human.”
— Zooey Deschanel

143. “If you’re in the public eye and you have young girls who look up to what you do, they’re going to look to you for certain cues, so you have to take that as a responsibility, whether you think you deserve it or not.”
— Zooey Deschanel

144. “I put myself out there; it’s part of my job, and I get it: people will attack me. At first I was thrown off, but now I have a pretty thick skin about it.”
— Zooey Deschanel

145. “I like a lot of old films, I like a lot old music, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that I like the idea of knowing what happens before, so that I can understand it.”
— Zooey Deschanel

146. “I always choose roles that are, you know, hopefully different from the last role. I don’t wanna do the same thing over and over again because that’s, well, first of all that’s no fun.”
— Zooey Deschanel

147. “You do not need to look or be anorexic to be successful in Hollywood. The range of what’s acceptable is a lot larger than what people believe.”
— Zooey Deschanel

148. “I tend to like simple music. And clever, succinct lyrics. Songs that don’t try to be more than they need to to be effective, to stir up something emotionally within you.”
— Zooey Deschanel

149. “My sister and I do to what we love to do and do what we want to do, so that sort of started us off having a sense of ‘Do this because you love it’ not ‘Do this because you want to be famous.’ IGN Logo.”
— Zooey Deschanel

150. “I love to cook. But I have some food allergies, so I have to contend with those.”
— Zooey Deschanel

151. “If I could give my teenaged self any advice, it would be ‘Calm down!’”
— Zooey Deschanel

152. “I’m always trying to do stuff I haven’t done before or challenge myself so I’m not resting on my laurels all of the time because if I just found my little niche and never left it, I’d be pretty boring, I think.”
— Zooey Deschanel

153. “The first album I bought with my own money was ‘A Hard Day’s Night.’”
— Zooey Deschanel

154. “Especially in comedies, I think a lot of time the female characters are there to provide a balance for guys.”
— Zooey Deschanel

155. “I like playing sort-of-crazy people. There’s something really, really fun about that.”
— Zooey Deschanel

156. “I think that the mistakes that anyone can make going on dates is probably not being themselves because you can only trick people for so long.”
— Zooey Deschanel

157. “If I were to work with my mom, I probably would not want her to play my mom. That would get too real.”
— Zooey Deschanel

158. “It’s a lot harder to do an ensemble because your energy is going in so many different places, and you have to cover everybody. You have to sort of split your attention.”
— Zooey Deschanel

159. “I’ve never pursued a role. I always hear stories about actors going after parts and I’m, like, ‘How do they do that?’ It seems so weird. It seems like a total myth or something.”
— Zooey Deschanel

160. “I’m always doing something musically – when I’m working or when I’m off.”
— Zooey Deschanel

161. “I think comedy’s just about being interested in comedy and what makes people laugh and experimenting.”
— Zooey Deschanel

162. “I think good actors tend to be really funny.”
— Zooey Deschanel

163. “I don’t think there are that many awesome roles out there, whether we’re talking about movies or TV.”
— Zooey Deschanel

164. “I’ve always been really picky about roles and make a point of reminding myself that it’s not about the money – because, obviously, there’s a lot of money to be made in this business if you’re willing to do anything.”
— Zooey Deschanel

165. “I really like the collaboration of doing movies and television. But I like the sort of solitary work of doing music.”
— Zooey Deschanel

166. “I’m wary about this thing about being in the generation of social networking where people are like, ‘I am my musical taste.’ I am not just a collection of music. Or a collection of movies. I think that’s a thing that people romanticize: ‘Oh my God, she likes this band so she is a dream.’”
— Zooey Deschanel

167. “I think that if you’re serving yourself before you’re serving a story then that’s where you end up being not funny. It’s not about being funny, it’s about telling a story and then the comedy comes out of the situation, I think.”
— Zooey Deschanel

168. “I feel like songwriting is an experiment in empathy.”
— Zooey Deschanel

169. “Most of my music theory knowledge is based on piano. But I write on guitar a lot, too. I’m not a great guitar player by any means. I’m not a great instrumentalist. I play piano on stage. I don’t play guitar on stage, but I use it to write quite a lot.”
— Zooey Deschanel

170. “Do your eye shadow first, then your foundation. That way, you can clean up any mess without starting all over again.”
— Zooey Deschanel

171. “I played a lot of sarcastic, wisecracking characters for a long time, and people would think that was me. And it’s very much not me, and then people would think I was being sarcastic when I wasn’t: ‘Oh, you’re making fun of me right now.’ And I wasn’t!”
— Zooey Deschanel

172. “The red-carpet thing of premieres and parties is probably my least favorite part of my job.”
— Zooey Deschanel

173. “I don’t think I’m very much like anyone else, really. I’m sure there are aspects of other actors that I share, but I don’t see anybody else and go, “Damn, they stole my thing.” I’m me, and I like that there are people who have an appreciation for that.”
— Zooey Deschanel

174. “Every show is unique; some shows have the master plan and have everything figured out and that’s just the way they do things. It’s like high school. Some people write their papers the second they get their assignments, and some people write it the day after it’s due.”
— Zooey Deschanel

175. “I have Pro Tools on my computer, and I make CDs all the time.”
— Zooey Deschanel

176. “Making movies, you’re like an independent contractor – you come in, you have a specific job, and a lot of what you do is completely manipulated, which is good and bad.”
— Zooey Deschanel

177. “I have a music career as well, so I was going to either be an actress or a musician. Then, I did both. But, I was always going to do something creative.”
— Zooey Deschanel

178. “Everyone romanticizes somebody.”
— Zooey Deschanel

179. “I love having a lot of content. I prefer to have constant stimulation.”
— Zooey Deschanel

180. “I like singing as much as I like acting, and all through high school I thought I might be a Broadway singer.”
— Zooey Deschanel

181. “I think my own personal style always ends up seeping into characters that I play. I’ve always had a very distinct idea of fashion for myself, and what a character should wear.”
— Zooey Deschanel

182. “I like romantic comedy as a genre, but I think it can get stuck in its ways.”
— Zooey Deschanel

183. “I have been a harmony enthusiast since I was a child, singing in choir and with friends growing up. I always put a ton of harmonies on my demos.”
— Zooey Deschanel

184. “The first job I ever had was singing in a jazz club when I was like 15 with my friend, and we earned like 70 bucks. We were like, ‘Oh my God!’”
— Zooey Deschanel

185. “I sort of consider myself a comedic actress, not a comedienne. I think it’s different. You know, I’m not a stand-up or anything, but playing into comedic situations is sort of where, I think, my strength lies.”
— Zooey Deschanel

186. “My biggest complaint with tights is that they do not accommodate skinny-ankled people like myself.”
— Zooey Deschanel

187. “It’s interesting, because as a musician, I don’t feel like I need to be on the top of the pop charts.”
— Zooey Deschanel

188. “One of the privileges of doing television is the ability to evaluate my own performance and try to improve upon it. I know what’s working and what’s not working.”
— Zooey Deschanel

189. “I feel there are tone singers, and there are more vocal gymnastics singers. And I think that’s amazing when people can do that, but I think there’s room for the tone singers. And there aren’t a lot of them.”
— Zooey Deschanel

190. “If people just want to be famous, that’s just not enough to get you up at 4 in the morning to go to work. You have to love what you’re doing.”
— Zooey Deschanel

191. “I don’t have control over what’s on screen, and that’s terrifying.”
— Zooey Deschanel

192. “That is so personal, and it’s my pet peeve when people press you on it. And it’s always women who get asked! Is anybody saying that to George Clooney?”
— Zooey Deschanel

193. “I think every year I become happier because I become more confident and more comfortable in my own skin.”
— Zooey Deschanel