- I enjoy hats. And when one has filthy hair, that is a good accessory.
- I'm too tall to be a girl, I never had enough dresses to be a lady, I wouldn't call myself a woman. I'd say I'm somewhere between a chick and a broad.
- My real hair color is kind of a dark blonde. Now I just have mood hair.
- [in a 1998 interview) I've sort of grown into my cuteness.
- [about President George W. Bush's daughters being caught with alcohol as minor] We all need to take a deep breath and think about being a Bush daughter and having that cross to bear. I'd go out and have a couple of drinks, too.
- [about forgetting to include the real-life Erin Brockovich-Ellis in her Academy Award acceptance speech] It doesn't bring out the Einstein moment that you hoped it would.
- You know I'm like a total geek, right? First of all, I sit on the set and knit. It's a very social hobby, as opposed to reading at work - I can chat with people and still be fully engaged.
- [about President George W. Bush] He's embarrassing, he's not my president. He will never be my president.
- I'm just an ordinary person who has an extraordinary job.
- [on the essence hr job] I get dressed up like a doll, a nice man puts lipstick on my lips and I say words - it's deeply satisfying.
- [n why she will never do a nude scene] I just don't feel that my algebra teacher should ever know what my butt looks like.
- You can be true to the character all you want, but you've go to go home with yourself.
- [interview in People magazine, 8/2/99] The first time I felt I was famous was when I went to the movies with my mom. I had gone to the loo, and someone in the bathroom said in a very loud voice, "Girl in stall No. 1, were you in Mystic Pizza (1988)?" I paused and I said, "Yeah, that was me."
- I think it's dangerous to talk in the big generalities of sexism and ageism and face lift-isms. You really have to speak only from your own experience. And my experience so far has been ridiculously nice. Yeah, do the boys get paid more? Yes. But do we all get paid too much? Yes. I'm confused at what I'm supposed to complain about.
- I wouldn't do nudity in films. To act with my clothes on is a performance. To act with my clothes off is a documentary.
- It's heaven truly... we were rehearsing one day, and we had just moved into the theater and it was dark out here, and I was on stage, and all of the sudden, I hear, 'Mama!' And Hazel had come in and in the dark just to hear this little voice, and it's incredibly amazing.
- I think one of the smartest things I ever did for my career was not working for two years in the early 90s. I was being offered a lot of different movies but I just didn't see the point of any of them. People would say to me "How can you just be passing on all those things?" And my response was "Tell me a movie you've seen in the past year that I should have made."
- [about her success] I'm just a girl from a little town in Georgia who had this giant, absurd dream.
- [on Clive Owen] George Clooney is obsessed with Clive. Every good-guy actor talks about Clive as one of their favourites. Because he's English, because his successes have stood on the shoulders of his talents alone, and because he hasn't been carried away by popular culture.
- I'm tall and smart. If you're aggressive and energetic it can be intimidating for people who aren't very smart themselves.
- We are happy as clams. I am fulfilled by my own life on an hourly basis. Every little moment is amazing if you let yourself access it. I learn that all the time from my kids; children are so filled with wonder. My youngest son woke up at 5 a.m. the other morning and said to me, 'It's a beautiful day, Mama!' What's more precious than that?
- I say you can call me, but I don't necessarily call everybody back now. I'm not off the market, but my decision-making has more components than it used to.
- [on meeting Eat Pray Love (2010) director Ryan Murphy]: I fell totally under his spell. We're sort of like best girlfriends now.
- I believe that the way you feel about your life will eventually show up on your face.
- [on Larry Crowne (2011)] This was my first college experience. And the first time I had to speak in front of a classroom, I was apoplectic. All these faces looking up at me, thinking, What is she going to teach us? I needed to find my composure. It was very hard--it was terrible, in fact.
- It's not just great teachers that shape your life. Sometimes its the absence of great teachers... Being ignored can be just as good for a person as being lauded.
- [on being asked how she developed her role as the nasty queen in Mirror Mirror (2012): The Untold Adventures of Snow White (2012)] Well, I'm happy to announce that she's not inside me. But, without naming names, I drew from a couple of people I know better than I wish I did, and found it very fun and helpful.
- [on how she manages fame and family] Family values. That's actually values in general. That's all there is. Fame is just a summer breeze that comes and goes. But to have a bedrock of knowing who you are, that's what it's all about.
- [on working with Meryl Streep] I've never seen anyone work harder than she does. She doesn't just snap her fingers and be a genius. To work with Meryl Streep is a dream come come true for anyone. To know her is an honor. She is such a beautiful person and it was intimidating, certainly to be in these scenes with her. Choking her, and things like that, were not how I pictured it going in my mind all these years. I thought we'd be together, having tea and speaking fabulous accents, all dressed up. But there we were - I'm sweating and have on a big butt pad. Meryl sees not only what I need as an actor but what I need as a girl in the world. She provides that, all the time. No wonder she's sleeping. She's exhausted after taking care of me.
- [on filming August: Osage County (2013)] Here's the thing. Here's the crux of the biscuit, if you will. We worked our asses off. Because there was no other way to do it. I've never worked so hard in my life and I've given birth to three children. It was like a mountain to climb every single day and the only way to climb it, we discovered, was holding hands - whether we liked it or not.
- [on James Gandolfini] If there was ever a friend I can only smile when I think of - even when it is through tears - it is James. My friendship with him was invisible. The sparest amount of notes or tangible signs that we shared some of our life experiences together. The evidence is only within my heart and a handful of cards, some photographs. The same could, I realize, be said for his acting. It was invisible. Sitting down with my husband - who was also a friend of James - recently to watch Enough Said (2013), one realized how skillful, masterful really James was. He so completely inhabits the part of Albert that the heartsick feeling I had at seeing James gave way to interest in the plight of Albert. Amazing. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is transcendent in this film and it is so simple and delicate and their relationship is funny and authentic and suddenly, poof, the film was over. I felt so sad. Sitting there still. But realized I was smiling. Because, of course, he was once again Invisible.
- I would like to work with Johnny Depp. I've known him a long time. I think he's so interesting, and I think we look alike in a funny way. So Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp and I will play brother and sister in something.
- I don't know what I've already said about I Love Trouble (1994), other than that it was a piece of shit. It's no secret than Nick and i didn't get along like a house on fire.
- The older you get, the more fragile you understand life to be. I think that's good motivation for getting out of bed joyfully each day.
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