All adventurous women do.

— Lena Dunham

All my freakouts have been pretty private and directed at family pets and/or people I have been dating for too short a time to freak out at in that way.

— Lena Dunham

Ambition is a funny thing: it creeps in when you least expect it and keeps you moving, even when you think you want to stay put

— Lena Dunham

A month into the semester, I would start showing up twenty minutes late to class again. The rewards weren't enough to keep me on task, and life got in the way. My mind wandered to the future, postcollege, when I'd create my own schedule that served my need to eat a rich snack every five to fifteen minutes. As for the disappointment written across the teacher's face? I couldn't, and wouldn't, care.

— Lena Dunham

And then, on the final day, it was time for the faux Underground Railroad. This is the part that no one believes. "No adult would ever do that," they say. "You can't be remembering that right." I am, in fact, remembering it perfectly. The counselors "shackled" us together with jump ropes so we were "like slave families" and then released us into the woods. We were given a map with a route to "freedom" in "the North", which must have been only three or four hundred feet but felt like much more. Then a counselor on horseback followed ten minutes later, acting as a bounty hunter. Hearing hooves, I crouched being a rock with Jason Beaujolais and Sari Broker, begging them to be quiet so we weren't caught and "whipped." I was too young, self-involved, and dissociated to wonder what kind of impact this had on my black classmates. All I knew was that I was miserable. We heard the sound of hooves growing closer and Max Kit nick's light asthma wheezes from band an oak tree. "Shut up," Jason hissed, and I knew we were cooked. When the counselor appeared, Sari started to cry.

— Lena Dunham

But ambition is a funny thing: it creeps in when you least expect it and keeps you moving, even when you think you want to stay put.

— Lena Dunham

Enjoy going through life as yourself.

— Lena Dunham

For me, sleep equaled death. How was closing your eyes and losing consciousness any different from death? What separated temporary loss of consciousness from permanent obliteration?

— Lena Dunham

Her Brooklyn accent only comes out when she's angry. This is the best part.... I pick at my pancakes while she tells me, simply, "It's ok to change your mind." About a feeling, a person, a promise of love. I can't stay just to avoid contradicting myself. I don't have to watch him cry.

— Lena Dunham

Here's what I have to say about being married: someday you will look at him, hating him with every fiber of your being, wishing that he would die the most violent death possible. It will pass."--Hannah Format's dying grandmother

— Lena Dunham