Mariska Hargitay's Quotes

I want to be a fun mom. Not a gasping for air mom.

I was lucky enough to have a father who said, 'Don't quit.' So I just kept going.

I'm a ready-shoot-aim kind of gal.

I'm an L.A. girl who became a tough New York cop.

If I eat clean, I look 10 years younger.

If you stop for one second and do something, everyone is happy. You pay it forward and it comes back to you twelve-fold.

It's a new skill to have two children that want you at the same time.

It's very difficult leaving the house anytime with my baby at home.

Life begins at 40, and I'm living proof.

My heart just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Of course everyone says they hate baby talk, but mine was not annoying.

There's the occasional script that just hammers you, that you can't shower off.

When we're on the street and someone drops something, I pick it up.

When my body is strong, I feel stronger inside. I feel more capable of handling emotional situations. Usually I'm more of a inside-out person, but this was a great case of me from the outside in.

You know how you wake up in the morning and sometimes you look gorgeous and other times you look like you got hit by a mack truck? I realized that my mack truck is food. If I have no sugar, yeast or wine, I have no undereye bags and my skin is perfect.

Everything has combined to make my life in New York an amazing experience. I told my manager a few years ago that I wanted to move here and try acting in the theater.

I'm living every ten-year-old boy's fantasy. The other day, Chris and I had this big scene where we had to pull out our guns, and I was thinking, 'Here we are in New York City - a place where every actor wants to be - and we are literally playing cops and robbers. How great is that?'

When I read the script sometimes, it's like 'Christ! Enough!' I can't sleep at night sometimes. There's the occasional script that just hammers you, that you can't shower off.

When I was in my early 20s, I had my hair permed. Bad idea! It turned into total frizz. My advice to women is, if you have nice hair already, don't get a perm, leave your hair alone!

When I was pregnant, I was so huge and people on the bus would get up for me. That made me feel so precious and valued and valuable. I try to treat everyone like they're pregnant.

Sometimes things in life happen that allow us to understand our priorities very clearly. Ultimately you can see those as gifts.

Chocolate is the first luxury. It has so many things wrapped up in it: Deliciusness in the moment, childhood memories, and that grin-inducing feeling of getting a reward for being good.

Yes. I did more research than I ever wanted to and saw some things I wish I didn't. I went on ride-alongs, spent time with Homicide, Cold Case, and SVU detectives, hung out in subways learning how to spot pervs and pick-pockets, viewed an autopsy, went to a police firing range, and witnessed court cases and I read, read, read.