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Happiness Quote by Rachel McAdams

"If I hurt someone, if I were to accidentally poke someone's eye out, I would laugh. And then I'd say, 'I'm sorry, I really do feel bad,' but then I'm on the floor rolling"

About this Quote

Rachel McAdams is performing a very specific kind of likability here: the confession that flirts with monstrosity, then immediately frames itself as human. The scenario is cartoonishly extreme (an eye poke, not a rude comment), which signals she isn't confessing to cruelty so much as to an inconvenient reflex. The humor lands because it violates the script of celebrity sweetness. We expect an actress to be effortlessly gracious, calibrated for soundbites; she offers a messy impulse instead, and the mess reads as authenticity.

The subtext is about the gap between emotion and ethics. She insists she would apologize and genuinely feel bad, but her body betrays her with laughter. That contradiction is the point: the involuntary giggle in the face of disaster, the way nerves can masquerade as amusement, the small embarrassment of not having your reactions under control. "I'm on the floor rolling" pushes it into slapstick, a self-mocking exaggeration that makes the admission safe. She's not bragging about lacking empathy; she's admitting to being socially unreliable in the moment.

Contextually, it's a late-2000s/2010s celebrity-interview move: revealing a "bad" trait that isn't actually harmful, just relatable. It lets her be funny without being mean, transgressive without being threatening. The intent feels less like shock value than preemptive defense: if you ever saw her laugh at the wrong time, she'd already told you the truth about herself.

Quote Details

TopicFunny
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
McAdams, Rachel. (2026, January 16). If I hurt someone, if I were to accidentally poke someone's eye out, I would laugh. And then I'd say, 'I'm sorry, I really do feel bad,' but then I'm on the floor rolling. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-i-hurt-someone-if-i-were-to-accidentally-poke-134499/

Chicago Style
McAdams, Rachel. "If I hurt someone, if I were to accidentally poke someone's eye out, I would laugh. And then I'd say, 'I'm sorry, I really do feel bad,' but then I'm on the floor rolling." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-i-hurt-someone-if-i-were-to-accidentally-poke-134499/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"If I hurt someone, if I were to accidentally poke someone's eye out, I would laugh. And then I'd say, 'I'm sorry, I really do feel bad,' but then I'm on the floor rolling." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-i-hurt-someone-if-i-were-to-accidentally-poke-134499/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.

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Rachel McAdams quote on nervous laughter and apology
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About the Author

Rachel McAdams

Rachel McAdams (born November 17, 1978) is a Actress from Canada.

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