The actress Goldie Hawn won her only Oscar for her role in the movie Cactus Flower, and it came at a young age and early in her acting career. Goldie played a ditzy young woman (a most logical casting from her acting in the Laugh-In TV series), but the character was complex and brilliantly played, because underneath that seemingly simple surface was a complex personality with a big trusting heart, and grounded in her own sense of treating others well.

“The lotus is the most beautiful flower, whose petals open one by one. But It will only grow in the mud.” Both her role as Toni Simmons in Cactus Flower, and this quote by the real-life Goldie, speak volumes about not “judging a book by its cover”. What kind of heart beats beneath the cover?

Perhaps our world would be a much better place if that one question was the way we primarily navigated our way through it, rather than “how much money do you make, how big is your house, what’s your status?…” It’s a shift from a societal matrix barometer to a feeling human one.

More quotes from Goldie Hawn:

“The key is to learn to respect and honor the complications of other people’s lives”

“It is the simplest things in life that hold the most wonder; the color of the sea, the sand between your toes, the laughter of a child.”

“The only thing that will make you happy is being happy with who you are, and not who people think you are.”

“Wonder shows in the light of our eyes. Without it, they become dull and old.”

“You know that feeling just before you’re going to laugh? That thing where you get all bubbled up?… It’s like a bubble of laughter, but it hasn’t come out yet…?
That’s what God feels like.
It’s a feeling of joy and love and well-being.”

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Susan L Hart 2023  / HartInspirations.com

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