Actress, writer, and advocate Carrie Fisher, best known for her performance as the bold, intelligent, and morally-grounded Princess Leia Organa in the Star Wars film franchise, was a hero to so many—an outspoken, brilliant, and, quite frankly, hilarious film icon who stood out from the Hollywood crowd.
The fearlessness, heart, humor, and spirit she brought to Princess Leia Organa in the Skywalker Saga inspired countless young women (myself included) to lead with tenacity and love and to rebel against oppressive structures. Fisher brought a warmth to Leia that became the backbone of the character: a royal-turned-general who had lost everything and yet never abandoned her hope for the future.
Though Leia Organa is a fictional character, there was much more still to admire about the artist who portrayed her. Like Organa, Fisher was an unapologetic, whip-smart iconoclast, revolutionary in her defiance of society's rigid rules and demands. But dig in a bit further into her staggering memoirs, interviews, and advocacy work, and you'll find a kind of tender fragility that transcends comparison. One of the reasons Fisher meant so much to me, and to many others, was her openness about her life with mental illness and her transparency about medication, treatment, and recovery. Fisher lived with bipolar disorder and addiction, and her candor served as a rejection of shame and stigma. Over the course of her life, she extended a lifeline to fans who dealt with similar struggles while campaigning for more accessible treatment and care options.
Years later, we still mourn the void left by Fisher's passing. But in moments of grief, it's also important to honor those passed by amplifying what mattered to them while they were still with us. Below, we've collected 40+ of our favorite Carrie Fisher quotes from her literary work, taking care to highlight those words which made us laugh, think, smile, or just feel a little less alone.
Our favorite quotes from Carrie Fisher’s memoirs
“If my life wasn’t funny it would just be true, and that is unacceptable.” —Wishful Drinking
"I am truly a product of Hollywood in-breeding. When two celebrities mate, something like me is the result." —Wishful Drinking
“I heard someone say once that many of us only seem able to find heaven by backing away from hell. And while the place that I’ve arrived at in my life may not precisely be everyone’s idea of heavenly, I could swear sometimes—if I'm quiet enough—I hear angels sing.” —Wishful Drinking
“No motive is pure. No one is good or bad—but a hearty mix of both. And sometimes life actually gives to you by taking away.” —Wishful Drinking
“Resentment is like drinking a poison and waiting for the other person to die.” —Wishful Drinking
“And when you're young, you want to fit in. Hell, I still want to fit in with certain humans, but as you get older you get a little more discriminating.” —Wishful Drinking
“At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you're living with this illness and functioning at all, it's something to be proud of, not ashamed of.” —Wishful Drinking
“People are still asking me if I knew Star Wars was going to be that big of a hit. Yes, we all knew. The only one who didn't know was George Lucas.” —Wishful Drinking
“I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.” —Wishful Drinking
“I decided to ride the lightning instead of extinguishing the light of life that had once shone out of my eyes.” —Wishful Drinking
“I don’t hate hardly ever, and when I love, I love for miles and miles. A love so big it should either be outlawed or it should have a capital and its own currency.” —Shockaholic
“I'll go hang out with a bunch of robots for a few months and then return to my life and try to figure out what I want to do when I grow up." —Shockaholic
“Offstage, I couldn't put things into words, and that was the one thing I'd always been able to rely on. Putting my feelings into words and praying they wouldn't be able to get out again. It had always been my salvation.” —Shockaholic
“Do not let what you think they think of you make you stop and question everything you are.” —The Princess Diarist
“It’s not nice being inside my head. It’s a nice place to visit but I don’t want to live in here. It’s too crowded; too many traps and pitfalls.” —The Princess Diarist
“I need to write. It keeps me focused for long enough to complete thoughts. To let each train of thought run to its conclusion and let a new one begin. It keeps me thinking. I’m afraid that if I stop writing I’ll stop thinking and start feeling.” —The Princess Diarist
“Someone has to stand still for you to love them. My choices are always on the run.” —The Princess Diarist
“The crew was mostly men. That's how it was and that's pretty much how it still is. It's a man's world & show business is a man's meal with women generously sprinkled through it like over-qualified spice.” —The Princess Diarist
“I've got to learn something from my mistakes instead of establishing a new record to break.” —The Princess Diarist
“I don’t just want you to like me, I want to be one of the most joy-inducing human beings that you’ve ever encountered. I want to explode on your night sky like fireworks at midnight on New Year’s Eve in Hong Kong.” —The Princess Diarist
“I liked being Princess Leia. Or Princess Leia’s being me. Over time I thought that we’d melded into one. I don’t think you could think of Leia without my lurking in that thought somewhere.” —The Princess Diarist
“I don’t want to make anyone else look stupid. That’s a privilege I reserve for myself.” —The Princess Diarist
“And as much as I may have joked about Star Wars over the years, I liked that I was in those films. Particularly as the only girl in an all-boy fantasy.” —The Princess Diarist
"I've washed that man right into my hair. He's sat in my chair and slept in my bed. He's eaten all my porridge and climbed inside my head." —The Princess Diarist
"I thought you might supply some tenderness. I lacked. But out of all the things I offered you took my. breath away. and now I want it back." —The Princess Diarist
"It's very dangerous to have someone like you, because one day he'll find that you are not the person he thought you were. He'll end up someday having only one thing in common with you and that'll be a shared sense of contempt and disgust for you." —The Princess Diarist
"I loved him and he allowed it." —The Princess Diarist
"He's far from a fool, nowhere near. I'm quite near. I can feel the fool that's so far away from him breathing down my neck." —The Princess Diarist
"My want can only do so much in terms of changing what's actually occuring with other people, and I'd like to keep it that way. I don't want to feel that if I had wanted something more, or had said one other thing, or had worn a different dress, or had been more mysterious, or more open, then I would get something or someone I wouldn't get otherwise." —The Princess Diarist
"A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle." —The Princess Diarist
“He was laughing that silent and hard laugh reserved for true enthusiasm.” —The Princess Diarist
"If you look at the person someone chooses to have 'a relationship' with, you'll see what they think of themselves." —The Princess Diarist
"I had never been Princess Leia before and now I would be her forever. I would never not be Princess Leia. I had no idea how profoundly true that was and how long forever was." —The Princess Diarist
“I am closer to who I want to be when I am alone lately. With people, I hear my voice and I just wonder who or what I'm doing all this for.” —The Princess Diarist
“Who do you want them to think you are? How do you think people see you? Or don't you let them near enough to see. You make up their minds for them.” —The Princess Diarist
"People adapt to you. Don't worry, you can't alter what they think of you to any great degree, and by the same token what they think of you can't alter you." —The Princess Diarist
"Youth and beauty are not accomplishments, they're the temporary happy by-products of time and/or DNA. Don't hold your breath for either." —The Princess Diarist
"I had so much lip gloss on you might have slid off and broken your own lips if you tried to kiss me." —The Princess Diarist
"I think that if I could give a name to what I feel it would go away. Find the word that describes the feeling and say it over and over until it's merely a sound." —The Princess Diarist
"I am a fool. I need a vacation from myself. I'm not very good at it lately." —Wishful Drinking
“What you'll have of me after I journey to that great Death Star in the sky is an extremely accomplished daughter, a few books, and a picture of a stern-looking girl wearing some kind of metal bikini…” —Shockaholic
“We often assume that when the surface offers so little the depth must be unfathomable.” —The Princess Diarist
Our favorite quotes from Carrie Fisher’s novels
"I told him about the Oedipal thing, about my father leaving when I was very young so I knew how to pine for men, but not how to love them." —Postcards from the Edge
"There are two things that I know for certain guys are good for: pushing swings and killing insects."—Postcards from the Edge
“I shot through my twenties like a luminous thread through a dark needle, blazing toward my destination: Nowhere.” —Postcards from the Edge
“Life is a cruel, horrible joke and I am the punch line.” —Postcards from the Edge
“I rarely cry. I save my feelings up inside me like I have something more specific in mind for them. I am waiting for the exact perfect situation and then BOOM! I'll explode in a light show of feeling and emotion—a piñata stuffed with tender nuances and pent-up passions.” —Postcards from the Edge
"I envy people who have the capacity to sit with another human being and find them endlessly interesting, I would rather watch TV. Of course, this eventually becomes known to the other person.” —Postcards from the Edge
“She wanted to be tranquil, to be someone who took walks in the late-afternoon sun, listening to the birds and crickets and feeling the whole world breathe. Instead, she lived in her head like a madwoman locked in a tower, hearing the wind howling through her hair and waiting for someone to come and rescue her from feeling things so deeply that her bones burned.” —Postcards from the Edge
“You know the bad thing about being a survivor...You keep having to get into difficult situations in order to show off your gift.” —The Best Awful
“Sometimes she’d just walk around the city alone. Watch the people, smell the food, the bus exhaust, the smoke coming up through the grating. She’d feel protected somehow, found a sense of belonging in the hectic sprawl.” —Surrender the Pink
