Charlize Theron quotes:

If they ever do my life story, whoever plays me needs lots of hair color and high heels.

I learned everything about love, watching 'Splash.' That's why I'm still single, so thanks Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah for that.

I'm an Academy Award winner. I'm serious.

I treat my relationships like marriages. The ceremony isn't that important to me.

Marriage equality is about more than just marriage. It's about something greater. It's about acceptance.

Blade Runner was an incredibly influential movie, in terms of the way that it envisioned what the future was going to look like.

I do not think that condemning people who murder and killing them necessarily sends out the right message.

So far I'm not surprised by anything about being a mom. It's all pretty great - but that's what I expected.

At least I know that one film-maker in my career has had the initiative to come to me and thought of me as being capable of doing interesting and complicated work, and so I have a new-found belief that other film-makers will see me in a different way, the way that Patty did.

I can only hope to be 10 percent of the mom mine was to me. She encouraged me to be confident and enjoy life. That's what I want for my son.

I have OCD, which is not fun. I have to be incredibly tidy and organized or it messes with my mind and switches off on me.

I grew up in South Africa and I would look at maps and we were at the bottom of the world. There was this whole thing up there. I was always reading encyclopedias about the world. So travel was something I was always attracted to.

Countries and states which have capital punishment have a much higher rate of murder and crime than countries that do not, so that makes sense to me, and the moral question - I struggle with it morally.

From the moment this baby came into our home, those two dogs have never been more in love. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever witnessed. People keep saying, 'Oh, you're a single mom.' I'm like, 'Actually, I'm not. I've got two boys helping.'

I had these fangs because I had jaundice when I was a kid and I was put on so many antibiotics that my teeth rotted. They had to cut them out. So I never had milk teeth. That was tough, you know, being in school having photos taken while I was pretending I had teeth. It was hideous.

I think today women are very scared to celebrate themselves, because then they just get labeled.

And I was victim to that very early in my career, where I would go into auditions, and I'd be wearing a big T shirt, a big baggy T shirt and loose jeans. You know, to try and show people that there was more to me than just that.

I've always been very aware of balance and, even before I had a child, my life always takes priority to my work.

So how critics will perceive your film or your work, or whether your movie is going to make $100 million at the box office, or whether you are going to be winning any awards - well, you have no control over that.

I have a problem with cabinets being messy and people just shoving things in and closing the door. I will lie in bed and not be able to sleep because I'll say to myself: 'I think I saw something in that cabinet that just shouldn't be there.'

I am a relationship girl. That's kind of just how I'm made... When you're in my life, it's actually very contained.

You are only as great as the opportunities that are given to you.

I think in life we want to challenge ourselves.

There's only so much you can do, but if somebody doesn't give you a chance there is nothing you can do.

I guess there are very few actors that I've worked with that I would like to work with again. You never think you'll have that chance and, if we didn't do Italian Job together, there wouldn't be another one that could be right.

ve had good friends who got married after they've been together for years and they've said that it was the "next step" for them. Or, they've said, "You just can't bail out anymore." And I've wondered, What made you think you could just bail out before [the wedding]? You don't invest that kind of time and energy with somebody and then just go, "All right, see you later."

I have been working a lot, and I like it. And you know, it's hard for me not to. I guess I've been working a lot because I get to play with brilliant people.

There's nothing I despise more than people trying to be something that they're not.

When they watch a movie and they know that you're in a relationship, you just kind of watch that constantly.

At the end, the realization is that she had to get to a place in her life where she could drop her guard and make peace with the fact that whether she had a small amount of time, that she had to kind of live it completely through, instead of living by the rules.

I don't believe in charmed lives. I think that tragedy is part of the lesson you learn to lift yourself up, to pick yourself up and to move on.

And doing a film in that period, and having to really celebrate what they wore back then, how they sat and how they spoke. You know, what the etiquette was back then for a lady. All of those things are like putting on a wig and transforming yourself, which I love.

I'm happy for people who want to get married but it's not my thing. I'm extremely happy in my relationship and I would love to have kids.

My mom has made it possible for me to be who I am. Our family is everything. Her greatest skill was encouraging me to find my own person and own independence.

I'm always open to a relationship, but I'm not putting those feelers out there now.

I'd love to get pajamas. Good, nice and warm flannel ones.

I have very talented people dress me and put my makeup on, stuff like that. But I do love that look, and I think it's maybe because I grew up on that old glamour.

You're either a really good hooker or a really good mom. That kind of conflicted nature is very much a part of being a woman.

You have to be able to feel like you can play way outside of the box. If you're with a great filmmaker and someone you can trust, that's encouraged, and Seth was that kind of filmmaker and co-star.

Women are not allowed to be [complicated] in our society. We're comfortable seeing women as great mothers, and then we're comfortable seeing them as hookers, but there's no in-between.

Get on my Harley and act like a guy.

I'm 50-50 on glamour stuff. I'd rather put on a pair of jeans and get on my Harley and act like a guy.

Hey, I'm a girl, and we like to play dress-up.

I think, like many women, I was judgmental toward women as they aged...

I think actors who know their job know that's how you do it. You don't show up and make people miserable. That poor grip who's standing there, he just wants to feed his family. He doesn't need to hear about your psychosis on life and love and death.

I am going home and I think in a week or so, hopefully, I'll be done with all the press stuff, and then I can kind of into my cave and start preparing for "Mad Max."

My thoughts and love go out to the Mandela family. Rest in peace Madiba. You will be missed, but your impact on this world will live forever.

When I'm working I don't have room to think about myself and my own issues. It's really freeing. There is no room for me, which is really nice.

I think substitution is a huge part of acting, but I don't personalise my work that much.

I had called her up a couple of weeks before then, because I had heard this vicious rumour that she did not like the movie. It was very upsetting for me. I am very sensitive to that, because I am portraying her life and did not want her to be unhappy.

Actors - we're selfish, but we can't think about the work in that kind of selfish manner. I think that you have to step away from yourself, if you're going to do it. Otherwise don't do it; otherwise why do it?

Beauty is more than skin deep.

I think good filmmaking is when you really hold the mirror up truthfully, and you don't angle it and you don't hide things with smoke and mirrors.

The human condition is all about us pretending to be something sometimes that we're not. When you get into the core of people kind of stripping all of that away, that's for me, as an actor, always the most fun stuff to do.

I'm a tough girl, and I can go without a shower bot a week and be fine with that. But I will not sleep on dirty sheets.

In the story, I think as an actor you're just trying to fit into the world.

When a person lives a very happy life they become beautiful.

I think writing a book with film in mind is a way to write a really bad books. You can usually tell those books that are packaged to become films.

We just need to put our foot down. This is a good time for us to bring this to a place of fairness, and girls need to know that being a feminist is a good thing. It doesn't mean that you hate men. It means equal rights. If you're doing the same job, you should be compensated and treated in the same way.

You know, I don't think any mother aims to be a single mom. I didn't wish for that, but it happened.

I am human, and, yeah, I have very bad days.

I grew up on Bette Davis movies, and Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe.

If I knew that 3D was going to be such a big deal, I would have gotten that boob job 10 years ago.

I guess because I pay so much attention to the physical part of the character, I don't look upon it as like Charlize Theron up there. I don't think of them as like Charlize Theron films.

I hate actors who come and quote Nietzsche.

And I do think that earlier in my career, I did make a very conscious decision to make sure that I was doing work that wasn't necessarily given to me, and that people didn't necessarily think that I would be able to do.

You can never get to a place of comfort in this business. As soon as you hit that little cushy spot, somebody's gonna kick you out. So I have a constant need to do it better.

I only worked on Men of Honor for three weeks, but I walked away with so much. Because Bob is the kind of actor who gives you the opportunity to really go there. And we really had to go there. I mean, we were both playing drunks.

I mean, I'm new but I've always been very interested in film making process and I've been lucky enough to work with film makers in my past that have been very encouraging to let me hang around. I get so emotionally vested - that the producer part of me was natural.

I feel 100% sure that I have the career that I have today because of independent filmmaking.

So I did that for a long time in my career, and I waited for parts to play myself just physically down a little bit. But I do feel like I'm at a place in my career now where I don't necessarily fret about that too much anymore.

I'm happy for people who want to get married. It's not my thing.

I never take that for granted, but I'm always very aware that I'm one person and I can't wear everything.

As actors, we were fighting that tooth and nail because of fear, because language is a crutch and dialogue is a crutch, and it's so easy to just have a great writer write you a line.

I love fragrance for the pure fact that I think it's something that women utilize in a way to make themselves feel good, and I think this idea that we do it for men or for other people is such a misconception.

I don't think you can create anything interesting from a comfort zone. You have to work from a place of fear and failure.

I know what I'm capable of wearing in one lifetime and what I really need.

I think people say women come into their prime in their 40s. And then for some reason our society just wants to go... it's like a dead flower.

You have to discipline yourself and not carry the character with you. You need to switch it off and take time to re-energize.

I've never been the kind of actress that just likes to show up and say my lines. I'm fascinated by what the crew does.

I can be a really good mother because I'm happy.

My job as an actor, and the part of my job that I love is the transforming-and-becoming aspect of it, and so it doesn't become about me anymore.

What I know in my heart is that women and girls on the ground are powerful and that they are leaders.

We value some lives more than others.

I don't try to kind of go for the overly sympathetic. I don't really like sympathy; I don't like it for myself. Sometimes sympathy you feel like, you're kind of trying to victimize someone.

They really stay just characters to me. I look at them, and I don't see always the same person up there. And hopefully, people will see that too. Because it's very easy to bore people, and that's a killer. So hopefully that won't happen.

Of course you want your son, your children, to be proud of you.

I was raised in a country [South Africa] with a lot of political turmoil. I was part of a culture and a generation that suppressed people and lived under apartheid regimes. I don't know how you can come out of that and not have an awareness for the world. I think that if my life had turned out any other way and I was working in a bank, I would still feel this way about it, because there's a connection to humanity that to me is really important.

People are so involved with immediate care, but at the same time there needs to be investment in educating people as adolescents when they're still HIV negative.

You can live vicariously through the characters you play.

I love being a woman and I love being feminine.

I really love having an awareness.

I've tried most of my career to transform myself towards characters.

I think acting is really fully adapting to your surroundings, to your emotions, to the people that you're working with, to being tired, to wanting to go home, to being lonely, to being happy. I mean, it's adapting. For me, it is anyway. And trusting. Adapting and trusting. That's my format right there.

I think there is a great quote - and I feel horrible that I don't know who said this - but it was a great quote, it says, "The only difference between all of us are the ones who are loved and the ones who are not."

I like hard work. I like putting the effort towards it and then being able to look at it and go, "All right, I did that."

I know that I'm only as good as I am because of the things that I allow into myself and into my soul, because that's the stuff that I project back out.

I do this because I'm an observer of people. That's why I want to be an actor. I'm fascinated by human beings and the circumstances they find themselves in.

Too many people have died so unnecessarily; AIDS is completely preventable, yet it's killing more kids in South Africa then everything else, and that's just not how it should be.

I can't live in a bubble and expect to come and work with Dior or go work on a movie and not have some kind of an evolution within myself and my own thought process and a passion about things or what's happening in the world. All of those things are the elements that make you who you are, and those are the things that sincerely come across in a photo or a commercial or in an interview. That's a constant thing for me.

I've always been comfortable with my sexuality. I'm blessed to have been raised by a woman who never made me feel ashamed about what's underneath my clothes. That's a part of me and I don't run away from it.

I think more than anything, people just want to be understood.

One thing can make many other things happen.

I think that women find their strength and power in their sexuality, in their sensuality within, [through] getting older and being secure within that.

You choose the life you want for yourself, and then you just shut up and go about it. That's how I've lived my life.

It's ironic that we've built the beauty world around 20-year-olds, when they have no f - kin' concept about wisdom, what life is about, having a few relationships below [their] belt and feeling hardships, to grow into [their] skin and feel confident within [themselves] and to feel the value of who [they] are, not because of a man or because of something like that. And I think that's such a beautiful thing.

've had good friends who got married after they've been together for years and they've said that it was the "next step" for them. Or, they've said, "You just can't bail out anymore." And I've wondered, What made you think you could just bail out before [the wedding]? You don't invest that kind of time and energy with somebody and then just go, "All right, see you later."

You always have this fear in a movie of just being somebody's woman.

I didn't grow up with a mother telling me what was under my clothes was bad or evil.

That's why I like my job so much, because at the end of the day they're fruits of labor that you don't pick very easily. And I love that.

I like being a cog in a wheel. I like being a small aspect of a much bigger thing, and I think my interest in that takes the pressure of myself.

I've always said that I worry about being with a man who doesn't flirt.

You can shave your head, but I've had to gain a lot of weight for movies, I've had to drop weight really fast for movies. I've had to learn accents or embody physical behaviors or twitches and things like that. And sometimes you take to some things easily and sometimes [not]. That's the challenge of the job.

I think I have a real interest in filmmaking, and it's nice when I can go and do that sometimes. Then it's also great to not do it and not have the responsibility .

Well, life is dark. We live in a very dark world. When they call them "dark films" it annoys me, because they're very real stories. They're stories I have seen or experienced or witnessed, and coming from that place, that is the hope of humanity.

We all understand situations where it's swim or drown. Sometimes we surprise ourselves when we start swimming and see how well we can do it.

I make a real effort to try and live in the real world and not just the dream world.

I think that luxury is to be used when you are in your jeans and your T-shirt and you want to feel a little extra special, and you want to go and walk into a store and have somebody go, "Wow, what is that?" Maybe that's the one and only thing you give yourself that day, but I think women like to give that to themselves.