“If I’ve learned one thing in life, it’s: Stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I was very down as a teenager, very upset because I had gotten hurt in a car accident. But my dad was a source of strength. He used to say, ‘It’s the character with strength that God gives the most challenges to.’ I’ve thought about that so many times in my life when things didn’t go right.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“Barry Levinson saw me on a tape and put me in ‘Rain Man’ as the waitress who dropped the toothpicks. The scene was talked about a lot. Then, all of a sudden, I started to get more auditions.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I don’t understand the rewarding of behavior that is less than classy. I don’t get it.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I won’t wear fur – never, ever. I’m an animal lover. I wouldn’t even wear faux fur. I prefer to go the cheap route and not shave my legs.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I’ve been so fortunate in my career and my own life just to have all these opportunities, and the talk show has always been one of my favorite formats.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I have a great affinity for senior citizens.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I worked at a nursing home though high school… There’s a lost appreciation for a generation that has so much to tell us when we’re so full of self-help books and doctors on TV.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“Because I’ve been so blessed with a background in nursing and spent so much time with patients at a really intimate, vulnerable time in their lives, the one lesson I’ve learned is that you never turn down a challenge where you can keep your creative integrity and your heart and soul and your sense of self.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“My dad was a man of great wisdom in his short time here.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“Would I like to be the lead girl? Who wouldn’t?”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I still have my bad days when I think I’m not getting everything I deserve. But those pass quickly once my Mother gets on the phone and says, ‘listen, we used to eat rocks and walk 80 miles a day to school.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“Hollywood is what you make it; you have to choose company with care because you become what they are.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I think families are so great, because when you go home, no matter what you’ve accomplished in your life, you still are the person you were in sixth grade to them. You know, it never really changes.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“When you fail by your own standards, it’s a form of success.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“But I’m thrilled to be employed, and to work with all my friends and people that I admire. You’re just lucky to work – that’s the bottom line.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I don’t think this is the end of Oprah, it’s only the beginning. I have a feeling that she’ll probably have her own station, and continue to do what she does.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“Oprah was not somebody who was telling us what to do, she wasn’t really teaching us like so many people we see today. With Oprah, she was learning and we were learning with her. And I think that’s really was the seed that was planted for all of us to just hang in there with her.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“The first time I was on ‘Johnny Carson,’ I remember being so scared, but the minute he started talking to me, I felt a little more comfortable because I just knew he was going to take care of me. Hopefully, I have learned something from watching him for so many years that I can offer that to a guest.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I don’t know if I realized that I was funny, but I realized how healing and important humor was in my childhood.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“Everybody knows when you’re a struggling family; you don’t really know it when you’re a kid. But you do know the difference between stress and moments of relief where there’s, like, this happiness.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I was a good kid.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I thought of school as a captive audience. It gave me a chance to work on my material.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I grew up in a working-class neighborhood, so there was always a sense of struggle, but we had hope.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I live in this apartment building, and everybody who lives there thinks of me as a housewife. People drop their babies off with me. Or I get notes: ‘I’m going to be gone for three days. The keys are under the mat; take care of the cats.’ Because they all think I’m home all the time.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I’m right on the edge of getting another movie. It’s between me and a famous person. The studio said they’re thinking about going with somebody with a name. I said, ‘That’s great! Because I have one!’”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I don’t write punch lines.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“Improvisation, if you play it at the top of your intelligence, leads to a kind of truth that people find really accessible.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I remember, when I was 7, my dad found a pregnant dog on the railroad track one day and brought her home. So my mom explained about how this dog was married but that her husband had passed away – she didn’t want me to even think that a dog could have babies without being married.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“All my brothers and sisters are really witty, and I would just sit back and enjoy them.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“If I couldn’t be Dick Van Dyke, I wanted to be Art Carney.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“Humor is very healing.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“In my neighborhood growing up, 8, 10,12 kids were the norm. Those stay-at-home moms would handle so much physically and emotionally. Even in my early teens, I could tell those ladies were something.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“When I was in high school, I hid in the back seat of an old boyfriend’s car when he was out with another girl. He finally found me, but not until after he had made out with her for an hour.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“My home is in Chicago, but I have an apartment in Los Angeles.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“When I first landed at Pixar, I felt like I found this creative oasis with John Lasseter… It’s what you thought Hollywood was going to be.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I wanted to be a story teller so badly.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“Anything Pixar does, you know, I really just am in awe of them and thrilled to be included in anything they do.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“The thing about Pixar, they don’t do the ‘trend is your friend.’ They’re really about timeless story telling, and that’s pretty great.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“Chicago has definitely played a part in my character development. I love the essence of the city, the personalities of the people, the hard-working spirit that you need to get through the winters. And every neighborhood has its great restaurants and the local hot-dog stand.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“Restaurants in Chicago are seldom disappointing.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I like regular meals and restaurants that will adapt things to your taste. Not a place where they roll their eyes if you want the sauce on the side.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“Carl Reiner is perfection.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I am a storyteller, and I take great pride in the storytelling and a great joy.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I love writing.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“Everywhere I go, people think I’m Helen Hunt.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“My mother gets told, ‘Oh, you’re so lucky that your daughters are doing so well.’ She never corrects anybody when they assume Helen is her daughter.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“When a fan holds out Helen’s picture for me to autograph, I usually sign it Linda Hunt – just to make their heads really crazy.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I thought of Second City as just the greatest therapeutic job anybody could ever dream of having.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“If you’re authentic, people smile because they sense there’s a piece of themselves there.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I’m trying to be truthful.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I don’t think of myself as a comedian.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“Everyone hopes to get a fall slot, but I’m just happy to get on the air.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I am on the phone with my sisters every day.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I only have one job, and that’s being a storyteller.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I was so angry at God for taking my father from me that I marched up to my mother before the funeral and told her I was going to quit nursing school. I just wanted to stop living.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I keep saying I won’t go back to television, but I do.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“You gain a certain maturity from being a nurse in a cancer ward.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“It’s not that I don’t take TV seriously. I take it very seriously. But I’ve got my priorities straight. Call it my extra gift. Without it, I would be devastated every day in Hollywood.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I would hope to have some of the same audience that Oprah has earned. And I would love to earn that, as well.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“When the Pixar people call, you jump at the opportunity.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“There were seven kids in our family. My mom had seven kids in 10 years. So you had to learn how to talk and think fast if you wanted to be heard.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I’m from an Irish Catholic family.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“There’s nothing funnier than religion. Try explaining it to a kid. I had it all wrong when I was a kid.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“Not only do people stop me on the street to say, ‘We’re walking, we’re walking’, but I have actually been in restaurants where the hostess was saying it to customers.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“When you’re an actress, you are a part of the storytelling process. You have to do the same thing when you direct.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I’m a blue-collar Chicago girl raised on wonderful movies my mom took us to, ones that had a lot of heart.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“My only power is my ability to do something with passion and do it well. It’s also something someone cannot take way from me, so it’s very valuable.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I don’t have the fear I won’t be able to think of something else to write. It’s what I do.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I don’t have the fear of my looks changing.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“If an executive producer has written a certain line, and an actress says it, and it’s not very funny, you don’t dare go to them and say, ‘I don’t like this,’ because it will make your life miserable.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“When you’re the mom in a big family comedy, you have to get your personality when you can.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“Over the years, if you look at the films of people like Billy Wilder, Preston Sturges, Frank Capra, their supporting characters, even if it’s a doorman with two lines, always seem three-dimensional. To me, that’s a sign of good storytelling.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I think you have to see the high highs and the low lows to get to the core of what makes us tick as people.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I loved when my folks would watch ‘The Dean Martin Show.’”
― Bonnie Hunt
“To have children on the set, you realize that if a 10-year-old can do it, who are you kidding? It humbles you.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I love talking to people and finding out their opinion.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“If you can maintain your standards and your integrity and you fail, it’s OK. It’s when you sell out and you fail that you feel pretty sick inside.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“What kind of woman irons her husband’s sheets? Even the clothes I wear, I just throw ’em in the dryer with some golf balls.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I think what happens is that some writers, who are so great in television or whatever, once they become successful, they get out of the loop of real life. It’s real hard to draw on something to write.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I really appreciate the everyday stuff as far as material.”
― Bonnie Hunt
“I lived in an apartment near Wrigley Field.”
― Bonnie Hunt
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