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Jane Fonda Quotes

Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model and fitness guru. She is a two-time Academy Award winner and two time BAFTA Award winner. In 2014, she was the recipient of the American Film Institute AFI Life Achievement Award.

Fonda made her Broadway debut in the 1960 play There Was a Little Girl, for which she received the first of two Tony Award nominations, and made her screen debut later the same year in Tall Story. She rose to fame in 1960s films such as Period of Adjustment , Sunday in New York , Cat Ballou , Barefoot in the Park and Barbarella . Her first husband was Barbarella director Roger Vadim. A seven-time Academy Award nominee, she received her first nomination for They Shoot Horses, Don't They and went on to win two Best Actress Oscars in the 1970s for Klute and Coming Home . Her other nominations were for Julia , The China Syndrome , On Golden Pond and The Morning After . Her other major competitive awards include an Emmy Award for the 1984 TV film The Dollmaker, two BAFTA Awards for Julia and The China Syndrome and four Golden Globe Awards.

In 1982, she released her first exercise video, Jane Fonda's Workout, which became the highest-selling video of the time. It would be the first of 22 workout videos released by her over the next 13 years which would collectively sell over 17 million copies. Divorced from second husband Tom Hayden, she married billionaire media mogul Ted Turner in 1991 and retired from acting. Fonda was divorced from Turner in 2001. She returned to acting with her first film in 15 years, the 2005 comedy Monster in Law. Subsequent films have included Georgia Rule , The Butler , This Is Where I Leave You and Youth . In 2009, she returned to Broadway after a 45-year absence, in the play 33 Variations, which earned her a Tony Award nomination, while her recurring role in the HBO drama series The Newsroom , has earned her two Emmy Award nominations. She also released another five exercise videos between 2010 and 2012. She stars with Lily Tomlin, Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen in the Netflix original series Grace and Frankie, which premiered in 2015.

Fonda was a visible political activist in the counterculture era during the Vietnam War and later became involved in advocacy for women. She was famously and controversially photographed sitting on an anti-aircraft gun on a 1972 visit to Hanoi. She has also protested the Iraq War and violence against women, and describes herself as a feminist. In 2005, she, Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem co-founded the Women's Media Center, an organization that works to amplify the voices of women in the media through advocacy, media and leadership training, and the creation of original content. Fonda serves on the board of the organization.

✵ 21. December 1937
Jane Fonda photo
Jane Fonda: 22   quotes 9   likes

Famous Jane Fonda Quotes

“you can be different if u be u”

Jane Fonda

“The challenge is not to be perfect…it’s to be whole”

Jane Fonda

“I am saddened that I have been linked with her politically… I have disagreed with her on every issue, from the bottom of my toes”

Jane Fonda

On Vanessa Redgrave, reported by Spartanburg Herald-Journal, 28 December 1979. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=VW0sAAAAIBAJ&sjid=y80EAAAAIBAJ&pg=2069,7100074

“It's not about how you look, it's about how you feel. I can do more with ease and grace now at 52 than I could when I was 20. I can ride my bike 60 miles, I can handle stress, I have good muscle tone. That's what it's about. Not about being thin but about being healthy”

Jane Fonda

Telephone interview quoted by Carol Krucoff. Why Jane's Fonda Exercise;Stress-Busting Workouts and Other News About Staying in Shape. Washington Post, 13 March 1990

“I believe that we have to strive for a transition to a socialist society … all the way to communism. I mean I think we should, uh, I think we should all study what the word means and I believe that if everyone knew what the word meant we would all be on our knees praying that we would, as soon as possible, be able to live under, uh, within a communist structure.”

Jane Fonda

Reported by Jesse Helms on WRAL-TV as remarks made at Duke University, quoted in The News and Courier (29 December 1970) "Freedom Hoax" http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=RchJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=vgwNAAAAIBAJ&pg=4424,7008512
Disputed

Jane Fonda Quotes

“How would you like to have a father who keeps getting younger looking every year? Do you realize what that can do to a woman?”

Jane Fonda

Jane Would Have Been a Star Even as a Smith. Associated Press/Daytona Beach Morning Journal, 30 June 1963 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=230eAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OcoEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3114,5294465&dq=the-institution-of-marriage-is-obsolete+fonda&hl=en

“I believe that we cannot survive as a democratic country when we are supporting someone like Thieu in Saigon, who has put 300,000 political prisoners in jail because they've spoken in favor of peace. I just don't believe that when a Republican Party bugs the Democratic Party headquarters, that that smacks of democracy. These kind of things I speak out against. That doesn't mean I'm a Communist.”

Jane Fonda

Interview by Phil Donahue (1972)

Peace , Democracy , Support , Country

“It's an unfair position, so you can do one of two things: just shut up, which is something I don't find easy, or just learn an awful lot very fast, which is what I tried to do.”

Jane Fonda

Leo Lerman, Jane Fonda Talks About. Juxtaposition, 1971, said in reference to media reactions to her learning about Indian affairs.

Learning

“To be a revolutionary you have to be a human being. You have to care about people who have no power.”

Jane Fonda

Newsweek, 1977, in reference to Jean-Luc Godard. The quote continues: "Godard had contempt for people, contempt for extras. I'd rather work with someone ideologically very different from me if they have concern and humanity towards their crew".

People

“The trick is to be Zen about it. Winning is sometimes not the prize”

Jane Fonda

On Twitter before the 2009 Tony Awards, as quoted by Canada East/Associated Press. Notable quotes from 2009 Tony Awards. 8 June 2009. http://www.canadaeast.com/entertainment/article/692573

“Being Henry Fonda's daughter got me started. But it didn't keep me working.”

Jane Fonda

Jane Would Have Been a Star Even as a Smith. Associated Press/Daytona Beach Morning Journal, 30 June 1963 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=230eAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OcoEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3114,5294465&dq=the-institution-of-marriage-is-obsolete+fonda&hl=en

Daughters

“The institution of marriage is obsolete”

Jane Fonda

Jane Would Have Been a Star Even as a Smith. Associated Press/Daytona Beach Morning Journal, 30 June 1963 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=230eAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OcoEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3114,5294465&dq=the-institution-of-marriage-is-obsolete+fonda&hl=en

Marriage

“Alternate form: I would think that if you understood what communism was, you would hope and pray on your knees that we would someday be communists. I am a socialist. I think that we should strive toward a socialist society - all the way to communism.”

Jane Fonda

Reported by Paul Scott in the Lewiston Daily Sun (27 September 1972) again as remarks at Duke University; http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FXwgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7mcFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1010,3814989 reported elsewhere as a remark made at Michigan State University (22 November 1970) and cited to the Detroit Free Press but without a date, page or headline.
Rick Perlstein, in a 2005 London Review of Books article and in his 2008 book Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (Simon and Schuster, p517 http://books.google.com/books?id=dM_enWzoghoC&pg=PA517#v=onepage&q&f=false), accused Helms of inventing the quote: "They tapped their network of friendly media propagandists, like the future Senator Jesse Helms, then a TV editorialist, who supplied an invented quotation that still circulates as part of the Fonda cult’s liturgy." http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n22/rick-perlstein/operation-barbarella The COINTELPRO Papers (2002) documents a separate attempt to plant false quotes from Fonda in the press.
Disputed

Hope , Way , Communication , Thinking

“In this country the only way a minority can get anything done is to make a little noise.”

Jane Fonda

Quotes from Women in the News, Associated Press/Gadsden Times, 15 March 1970. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BhIpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=mNYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1902,1282871

Way , Country

“Women are not forgiven for aging. Robert Redford's lines of distinction are my old-age wrinkles.”

Jane Fonda

Michael Perry. Jane's wrinkled but Fonda herself now. Sydney Morning Herald, 22 December 1985 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=2a1WAAAAIBAJ&sjid=e-gDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5135,3817429

Women , Age

“I vowed I wouldn't get married until someone gave me one good reason to. No one ever did - but I got married anyway”

Jane Fonda

Said to Redbook Magazine, quoted by Harold V. Cohen, At Random, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 22 July 1969 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=UMpRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=D20DAAAAIBAJ&pg=7053,3057856

“I don't think there's ever been such a clear choice between radicalism and moderation. I mean, we are dealing with a radical ideologue here.”

Jane Fonda

On the 2004 Presidential election. Rebecca Traister. Enough with the vaginas! Salon, 15 September 2004 http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2004/09/15/ensler

Thinking

“It's a lie. I agree with the military experts who say it's a quagmire.”

Jane Fonda

On the Iraq War. Rebecca Traister. Enough with the vaginas! Salon, 15 September 2004 http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2004/09/15/ensler

Lie

“This has gone on far too long, this spreading of lies about me! None of it is true. NONE OF IT! I love my country. I have never done anything to hurt my country or the men and women who have fought and continue to fight for us. I do not understand what the far right stands to gain by continuing with these myths.”

Jane Fonda

Blog posting (16 July 2011) http://janefonda.com/qvc-cancelled-my-appearance/

Love , Women , Men , Understanding

“Winning means some kind of approval of the Establishment which means people will more readily accept me, may be less frightened of me and other people who speak out”

Jane Fonda

On winning the Academy Award for Best Actress. Quotes of the Week. The Associated Press/Reading Eagle, 16 April 1972 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AgkrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qpkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6286,3330743

People

“In the hyper-sensitized reality of the region in which any criticism of Israel is swiftly and often unfairly branded as anti-Semitic, it can become counterproductive to inflame rather than explain and this means to hear the narratives of both sides, to articulate the suffering on both sides, not just the Palestinians.”

Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda expresses regret over film fest protest http://web.archive.org/web/20090924084738/http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hbIn5EBVrgcVoM8z8WGshai3begA, by Cassandra Szklarski, September 14, 2009.

Reality , Suffering

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