Top 66 Salma Hayek Quotes

When I started acting, I was told over and over again, ‘You’re no good.’ But I said to myself, ‘You’ve got to keep it up.’

I think that it’s important for every single person, no matter what they do in life, to participate in the well-being of humanity and the planet. Don’t let a year go by knowing you didn’t make an effort to do something – no matter how small – outside your own problems and drama.

Being a mother is more exhausting than working, and sometimes I push myself too hard and burn myself out. I can appreciate how exhausting it must be for women who have to do everything themselves all the time.

I have always been an active part of my community.

I will not have Botox. You know why? Because I eat! I eat the fat, I eat the vegetable, I eat everything. If you exercise and you don’t eat enough, it takes its toll on the skin.

You know how macho boys get when they’re all together? Well, the set of ‘Desperado’ was like that. They were all trying to put me down, saying, ‘Bring on the stuntwoman, Salma can’t do that.’ But I did everything.

My English was limited to vacationing and not really engaging with Americans. I knew ‘shopping’ and ‘eating’ English – I could say ‘blue sweater,’ ‘creme brulee,’ and ‘Caesar salad,’ – so I came here thinking I spoke English.

I keep waiting to meet a man who has more balls than I do.

If I’ve been indulging in rich foods, a cleanse is a wonderful way to hit the reset button.

If it wasn’t because of my high heels, I would still be in Coatzacoalcos with 10 children.

If you’re feeling blue, lock yourself in a room, stand in front of a mirror, and dance – and laugh at yourself and be sexy. Dance the silliest and ugliest you’ve ever danced. Make fun of yourself and try to recover your sense of humor.

Love food and I love to eat.

Art and activism seem to go together naturally, the idea being that if you’re an entertainer, you can have a voice, and if you have a voice, you can make a difference. But if I were not an actress, I would still try to extend myself beyond my little micro-universe of my job, family and personal joy.

‘Frida’ was a joy; this was delicious, I couldn’t wait every day to get to the set, although I was exhausted, and have my leg get cut off or lose the baby or be in her shoes and get to play my hero and be able to go places emotionally. You know, we live for parts like this. This is a dream for an actor.

I want my little girl to tell me who she is so I can encourage her and not impose my desires for her on her life. I want her to dream big and to know that if she is willing to earn it, she can have anything – and become anything.

Somehow I am really relaxed within the chaos of having a baby – and anyone who’s a mother knows it’s very hard to relax, because there is so much to do and worry about!

I think if I was not in love, I would probably let myself go faster. Love gives me the vanity to continue.

I think it’s important that kids have responsibilities and understand the value of things, but I think it’s great I get to travel the world with my daughter.

The thought of somebody pulling and cutting around my face gives me stomach ache. Plastic surgery would be so painful. What if it doesn’t look good? What if they made a mistake? I couldn’t do it.

There’s a lot about the character. It doesn’t always happen, but there are some characters you really create a relationship with, almost as if they were your friend. And you never get into their heads again or think like them.

I love to cook when I have the time. I don’t cook French or Mexican food with exact recipes. I just go to the supermarket and buy things that look good, and I mix it all together and invent something. Ninety-five percent of the time, I’m lucky. Sometimes not so lucky, and I say, ‘Let’s go out to dinner.’

My driving abilities from Mexico have helped me get through Hollywood.

My accent was horrible. In Mexico, nobody says, ‘You speak English with a good accent.’ You either speak English, or you don’t: As long as you can communicate, no one cares.

I love being a wife and homemaker – because it’s my choice. My husband doesn’t expect me to do it. I don’t mind doing things for him because he does so much for me; we both feel that way so there is no power struggle.

You can have a spiritual awakening and discover a new side of you at any age. And best of all, love can happen at any age. Life can just start to get exciting when you’re in your 40s and 50s. You have to believe that.

I became obsessed with all these women who die never feeling they did anything extraordinary with their lives.

There were many times when I had to emotionally come to terms with the fact that maybe I wasn’t ever going to get married. And I started getting comfortable with that.

I grew up in Mexico, not the U.S., and the fact is that there just aren’t any parts for Latin actresses. I have to persuade people that my accent won’t be a problem, but an asset.

At one point in my life, I was very involved with social causes. I’m still involved, but now I have a family and it’s important to me.

I have a ranch, which is my favorite place in the world.

I was privileged to grow up in Mexico at a time when you could play in the streets. We lived not too far from the ocean, and we would be outside all the time with the neighbours’ kids, running free. What better place could there be for a child?

People always underestimate me. But if you stick around long enough, act out of conviction, and try to be honorable in everything you do, good things will come to you.

So you have to keep waiting and then they give you the script and it’s terrible. Then you have to go to the rewrite and they’re very upset because you didn’t like it. I went through that for seven years.

If a man lets all of my dogs sleep in the bed with us, then that is the most romantic thing. You must love my dogs in order to love me. A man who is nice to my animals and doesn’t shoo them away – well, that’s the height of romance.

My grandmother was energetic and fearless – a talented poet and songwriter. She was also interested in chemistry and history and medicine, taking care of the people in her hacienda in Mexico, delivering babies. She could have become anything, but this was the 1930s, and she was forced into an arranged marriage.

If you love food and you love red wine and they put you in France, you’re in a good place and you’re in a bad place at the same time. You have to weigh yourself every day, and you have to have an alarm number. When you get to that number, you have to start putting it in reverse.

I believe eating well, and with people you love, is about feeding your body, heart, and soul – I used juicing to ensure I covered my nutritional bases every day, and as a tool to restore inner balance if my body needed a break from too much indulgence.

I said, ‘I’m going to the United States to study with Stella Adler and do movies because nobody here has done it and my passion is films.’ But I came here and I didn’t speak English, I didn’t have a green card, I didn’t know I had to have an agent, I couldn’t drive, I was dyslexic.

I like being a mother. For some people, it’s so much work that it can be a burden. But it’s not for me, maybe because I had my daughter, Valentina, later on in life, at 41.

I aim for a lifetime full of movies.

If you give me any problem in America I can trace it down to domestic violence. It is the cradle of most of the problems, economic, psychological, educational.

You can be a thousand different women. It’s your choice which one you want to be. It’s about freedom and sovereignty. You celebrate who you are. You say, ‘This is my kingdom.’

For me, I have to say that I like to work a lot too, but I like not working better. The perfect scenario is when you just worked and you know something’s coming up, then you have four, five, six months off. But you know you’re going to have a job later.

I have a farm and I love it there. There’s really nothing to do, but even watching the chickens, its fun.

After doing a juice cleanse, I’m motivated to eat healthier and not emotionally. Cleansing is like my meditation. It makes me stop, focus and think about what I’m putting into my body. I’m making a commitment to my health and hitting the reset button.

What works in a relationship of very public people is not making the relationship public – keeping it as personal as it can be. It’s the only way it is real.

I didn’t think marriage worked. I thought everybody who was married was secretly miserable – that it was something they just put up with for their children.

I had to endure the worst time of all in terms of racial discrimination in Hollywood when I first started out. It was inconcievable to American directors and producers that a Mexican woman could have a lead role.

And I highly recommend for all the women in the world, even if they’re 71, you can never take for granted that he loves you. It’s always good to flirt with him. It’s a great sport.

You know Latin people? African-American people? How our skin ages more slowly? Even though we’re dramatic, we move our faces, we eat higher-fat foods, we’re the ones with fewer wrinkles – it makes you wonder.

Don’t try to dress like me or wear your hair like mine. Find your own style.

Find your own style. Don’t spend your savings trying to be someone else. You’re not more important, smarter, or prettier because you wear a designer dress.

I do have a Mexican accent, but that doesn’t mean that I’m a Latin vamp.

I directed a movie and now, I’m going to do the editing.

It sounds trite to go after men who are nice but when you’ve been hurt a lot it becomes appealing.

If I go on a diet and work out, I’m always in a bad mood. I’d rather be a little heavier but nice.

No woman has to be a victim of physical abuse. Women have to feel like they are not alone.

Every unwanted animal ends up on my farm: alpacas and horses and dogs and cats and chickens and ducks and parrots and fish and guinea pigs.

How I would describe my characters is absolutely different from how I would describe myself.

There has never been a female director who has won an Oscar. There has only been one woman who won at the Cannes Film Festival.

There is a subconscious way of taking violence as a way of expression, as a normality, and it has a lot of effects in the youth in the way they absorb education and what they hope to get out of life.

The truth is, I just don’t have the drive to be the prettiest and the thinnest. I can be happy for other people for their beauty.

I believe that change keeps you young.

I have never denied my background or my culture. I have taught my child to embrace her Mexican heritage, to love my first language, Spanish, to learn about Mexican history, music, folk art, food, and even the Mexican candy I grew up with.

I’m a country girl. I have to be in nature, so my daughter is exposed to it a lot.

I also have a film coming up called Breaking Up, and my part in that was not written for a Latina, and my character is not particularly pretty or sexy or exotic.