Quotes

"I had hoped that girls all over the world would relate to Thirteen (2003). But I had no idea that girls I was sitting next to went through the same-things I did."

"I didn`t know when I finished Thirteen (2003) that I wanted to be an actress. I went back to high school, and then I realized I missed it. I had fallen in love with being on the set."

"I was raised by my mom. It was definitely a struggle competing with my brother who is only one year older than me. He wanted to be my older brother but I looked older than him. We were competing for my mom’s attention. There was so much tension between us that my mom backed away from us. It was so emotionally out of control."

"I went through what I went through too young. Emotionally, it was really hard juggling all these things I was going through."

"I know 13-year-old girls who are just like me, and I know 13-year-old girls who are still playing with Barbies."

"Before the 80’s everything seems ancient to me."

"I definitely think that females have a harder time. It’s a lot harder to be a girl because you’re always in your head. I’ve heard my brother go and take it out on the football as he says. Whereas girls would rather sit down and over think things. Guys just punch a wall and I think that could be easier because that’s instant release instead of letting it build it up. But a lot of people say guys just hold it in as well."

"I think my mother is my biggest influence. There are so many things I hate about her but at the same time I’m thankful for her. All I know is that when I’m a parent I want to be just like my mom. I can talk to my mom more than any of my friends could talk to their parents."

"When I co-wrote the film Thirteen, I talked about the experiences of teenage girls I personally knew. I recently turned sixteen, and the only difference in my life now is that I have fallen in love for the first time. My boyfriend is Hawaiian, he's laid back, and he couldn't care less about the Hollywood scene. The other night when we were out, I grabbed his arm and said, 'Oh my God, look! There's Jennifer Lopez.' He just turned to me and said, 'So what? You're prettier than she is.' I have the best boyfriend in the world!"

[ on Thirteen ] "Most teen movies are fantasies, like The Princess Diaries. But my movie is coming from a completely different angle, which is truth. This is what really happens."

"People tend to get nervous when they're working with first time writer-directors. Because, we've all had our share of bad experiences when you work with someone who is too close to the material and can't really pull themselves away."

"The number-one rule of writing is write what you know--or something like that. So I wrote about my experiences."

I grew up too fast. I looked a lot older than I was but when I was 13, I looked how I did now so I don’t know if I look 18 or whatever now. There’s a lot of stuff too. Competition with my brother. When I was 13, he was 14 and he was still a little boy. I would walk down the street and people would say, 'Oh, this is your little brother? He’s really cute.' So just normal stuff.