Reese Witherspoon quotes:

For our first date, I made Ryan Hamburger Helper, which is basically what I grew up on. I make my own version of it now, with macaroni and cheese and hamburger meat. And the kids - it's their favorite dinner.

Being a Southern person and a blonde, it's not a good combination. Immediately, when people meet you, they think of you as not being smart.

I feel very blessed to have two wonderful, healthy children who keep me completely grounded, sane and throw up on my shoes just before I go to an awards show just so I know to keep it real.

The joy we get as actors is out of transforming ourselves into something that's not necessarily anything true to ourselves. And it's a power - not being yourself, and being in the role; it's just like another prop.

That said, my kids are at home right now with my husband and I'm missing something important at my daughter's school which makes me feel sick inside. It's a lot of balance and a lot of really hard decision making.

There are things in my life that are hard to reconcile, like divorce. Sometimes it is very difficult to make sense of how it could possibly happen. Laying blame is so easy. I don't have time for hate or negativity in my life. There's no room for it.

I had parents who believed I could do anything - and I know how that made me feel. I think both my parents, having careers in the medical profession, feel they are helping people on a daily basis, and that was inculcated in me as a value. I had to struggle with giving up the idea of becoming a doctor myself.

To play June, I had an immediate connect with her background and culture. We grew up with the same religion and shared a lot of the same values of family and spirituality. But I was really so inspired by what a modern woman she was.

I don't think I realised how stressed I was, being a single parent. It was really, really stressful. It's not easy on anybody.

I love to cook comfort food. I'll make fish and vegetables or meat and vegetables and potatoes or rice. The ritual of it is fun for me, and the creativity of it.

I had someone correct my grammar once on a blind date, and within the first 10 minutes the date was over. You just don't correct somebody's grammar. That's just not okay. I'm from Tennessee, so I probably say everything wrong. I might have said 'ain't,' or something like that.

Everybody needs love. Everyone deserves it.

I get crazy in a bookstore. It makes my heart beat hard because I want to buy everything.

I'm losing friendships over forgetting to get back to people. But you can't keep up with everything. I've got a 13-year-old, a nine-year-old and a baby.

My ex-husband is very involved in raising our beautiful children. We're very lucky because we both grew up in working families in middle America. We're on the same page that way.

It's hard having kids. It's hard having a job. It's hard having a relationship - for anybody.

It's fun chasing boys, especially when you're young, but I think it takes time and life experience to notice the other boys.

I think movies are great and I have a great time making them but they're not what keeps you warm at night, or what's ultimately the most important thing in anyone's life journey.

Even people that know Johnny Cash's music really well and know that he was married don't really know that much about June Carter. So finding out about her really helped to inform my performance and to bring her to the front in a way that she has never been before.

Lord knows, every day is not a success, every year is not a success. You have to celebrate the good.

When a police officer tells you to stay in the car, you stay in the car.

I literally think I look bad in every picture.

I'm just chatty. But I do express my opinion.

My whole drive to be an actor was finding roles that I really believed represent modern women, the struggles that we deal with. Women who are strong and capable and in control of their own lives.

But with the right kind of coaching and determination you can accomplish anything and the biggest accomplishment that I feel I got from the film was overcoming that fear.

I don't believe in perfection. I don't think there is such a thing. But the energy of wanting things to be great is a perfectionist energy.

It's funny that it all becomes about clothes. It's bizarre. You work your butt off and then you win an award and it's all about your dress. You can't get away from it.

We each own one car, and we have a reasonable house. It's a lovely place to be, but it's not extravagant.

It's fun to do a comedy and hook people in and then hoodwink them into watching a serious movie. I like to lead in with the comedy and then hit them over the head with a drama.

I don't believe in perfection. I don't think there is such a thing. But the energy of wanting things to be great is a perfectionist energy

It really bothers me when people don't use coasters. Particularly on my table.

I grew up in Tennessee. We didn't know what Louis Vuitton was. I had to order all my prom outfits out of catalogs.

I thought I knew everything about love and relationships in my 20s, the ignorance of youth is bliss. As you get older, you start to realise that you don't really know anything and life is a great traveling journey. Life is unexpected...you just never know whats going to happen.

My sheets are monogrammed, so is my silverware and pretty much everything else I own. My rule is, if it's not moving -- monogram it!

My rule is, if it's not moving-monogram it!

And I think Taylor Swift is just an exemplary young lady. It's kind of interesting to see what a profound songwriter she is. I don't even think anyone has realized, the long term is going to be the bigger revelation. It's incredible how quickly she writes songs. We've hung out a couple times, we live near each other in Nashville.

It was definitely a scary situation and I was frightened for my husband, but that is no excuse. I was disrespectful to the officer who was just doing his job. I have nothing but respect for the police and I'm very sorry for my behavior.

If you took naked pictures of yourself on your cell phone, you hide your face, people! Hide your face!

And I want to say that my grandmother was one of the biggest inspirations in my life. She taught me how to be a real woman, to have strength and self-respect, and to never give those things away.

I take the kids to church and Sunday school. They love it. I really think it's important for a child to feel that there are things that are bigger than your life out there.

I have a good memory for certain things. And a very short memory for painful things - that's my favorite Martha Stewart quote, by the way.

I always say that it's very important not to blame one person. You have to own whatever part of it you're responsible for. It takes a lot of soul-searching. It's important to go through that, because hopefully you won't repeat yourself.

Realizing you're not anything special to the kids is always a great sort of reminder that you're just a regular person. A regular, embarrassing old mom.

I was surprised when the ultrasound revealed that I was having a girl. I was convinced I was having a boy. And I was completely confounded by the fact that I wasn't in control of the situation; that I was being introduced to a different individual coming into my life.

I think women are natural caretakers. They take care of everybody. They take care of their husbands and their kids and their dogs, and don't spend a lot of time just getting back and taking time out.

I have to admit I was dismayed when I found out 'type A' refers to a category of risk for heart disease - I thought it was just a nickname my mom gave me!

Well I always wanted to be Dolly Parton when I was a little girl. I was obsessed with her.

I think, like every working parent, I sometimes feel that there are not enough hours in the day. But overall, I'm very fortunate that my job has a lot of flexibility. I spend a lot of time with the kids, just around the house.

I got a role in this movie called Freeway playing this really angry, aggressive, violent young woman who believed wholeheartedly in the truth. I had such satisfaction afterward, and I thought, That's what I want to do.

There's no bad consequence to loving fully, with all your heart. You always gain by giving love.

Ryan and I didn't grow up like this at all, with this much attention. We'll just try to keep their feet on the ground and raise them with the values we were raised with.

Do I need men? I don't think it's about needing men. It's about love.

I really wanted to be a Broadway kid.

A [news] magazine printed a [photo-illustration] of me in a ball gown holding a vacuum cleaner, saying I started a company. Last time I checked, I'm not selling vacuums. It was very sexist.

Art is art. Television has elevated itself, in certain ways, but it's always pushed people's consciousness.

As an artist, I feel more strongly than ever that my job on earth is to tell the stories of the invisibles, and women have been invisible on film for a long time.

But like Elle Woods, I do not like to be underestimated.

Confidence is everything in this business.

Costumes, fashion, it's all an expression of self, and the more you push the boundaries - the more that people work at creating alternative ideas - the more it changes people's ideas of beauty.

Doing begets more doing. It sounds simple, but I'm a firm believer that action can solve so many worries, and just powering through, no matter what, can give you the confidence you need when you feel like you've got nothing to offer.

Every day you have to choose and cultivate your own happiness.

Everything I sang sounded awful. So I went outside and I screamed. Everyone pretty much agreed it was awful.

Exploring female rage on film doesn't frighten me - it might frighten a lot of people in my business, but, gosh, I know a lot about that, from personal experience and friends' experiences.

God bless that women are free in America. We can say what we want, and I do think women will heal the world.

God, America is a country predicated on listening to everybody. When did we stop listening to one another?

Growing up in the South, it was very patriarchal. When I applied to Stanford, I was told by a [male] college counselor, "You're never gonna get in, don't bother. They don't want you." I said, "I'm going to try." And I got in! But I wouldn't be the woman I am if I hadn't had that conflict to overcome. It has given me an underdog feeling all my life.

I always let my husband read the script so he knows what's about to happen to his wife. When I played Cheryl Strayed in Wild, I'd get really mad about certain things, I'd say really profound things, and I'd curse out of nowhere. He'd say, "Are you you, or are you Cheryl?"

I believe ambition is not a dirty word. It's just believing in yourself and your abilities. Imagine this: What would happen if we were all brave enough to believe in our own ability? To be a little bit more ambitious? I think the world would change.

I clearly had one drink too many and I am deeply embarrassed about the things I said,

I didn't really understand fashion until I started going to Paris and seeing the ateliers and how hard these people work. It's art.

I don't have a lot of physical comedy instincts. I'm more verbal.

I don't know what I would have done so many times in my life if I hadn't had my girlfriends.

I don't think these women are stupid. I think they're selling a personality that's very marketable: Wouldn't it be fun if we were all gorgeous and didn't have a care? But creating a cultural icon out of someone who goes, I'm stupid, isn't it cute? makes me want to throw daggers at them! I want to say to them, My grandma did not fight for what she fought for, and my mother did not fight for what she fought for, so you can start telling women it's fun to be stupid. Saying that to young women, little girls, my daughter? It's not OK.

I don't want to discount the beautiful work that the fashion houses do, but somehow, just focusing on what you're wearing feels reductive.

I have a history, a long history of being stereotyped as a five-foot-two woman, which is very limiting. I've worked so hard to create characters that have dignity. And I think everybody knows that I have a very pro-woman message in my work - and in my life.

I have achieved a certain amount of success, and I felt a responsibility to my daughter and to women in this world to create more opportunities for women.

I like my body so much better after I had kids. Is that a crazy thing to say? I'm more womanly. I feel sexier.

I like Yoga. I run. I go hiking. I'm very active. I like being outside.

I love that people are going, Yeah, I love a hundred different kinds of beauty; it's not all the tall, skinny supermodel. Around the world, we have to find the beauty. Now more than ever, we're looking.

I mean, really: He called me 33 percent lesbian, which was a gross underestimation of my lesbian-ness.

I played a lawyer in a movie so many times I think I am a lawyer. And clearly I'm not a lawyer, because I got arrested.

I read while the kids play. I can see them from the kitchen window. And I'm a fast reader.

I started working on trying to sound like June from the very beginning.

I thought I was going to go back to Stanford, and then I got Election. I loved being an actor.

I traveled all over the South looking for factories - to keep production in the South. I wanted to give back to the place and people that raised me.

I want to make my life, not just my job, the best it can be. The rest will work itself out.

I was all of these women. I've been a young mom; I've been a divorcée; I've been a single mom. I've been the working mom versus the nonworking mom.

I was always, as a younger actress, very conscious of not wanting to act sexy. I didn't see myself like that. But I think as a woman, you get older, you feel more confident in your sexuality. You're not as intimidated by it, not as embarrassed by it.

I was debating whether to do Legally Blonde, and I saw this interview with Gloria Steinem about how important Goldie Hawn's role in Private Benjamin was for women; by the end of the movie, the character socked her fiancé in the face at the altar because he didn't understand who she'd become through her journey. I was like, "I feel like Gloria Steinem told me to do Legally Blonde. That's how Elle Woods is too!"

I was talking to my friend who's a psychologist, who says a woman's frontal cortex isn't fully developed till 25 and a man's till 28. I was almost 34 when we met; he was 39. So I wouldn't say either of us has wildly changed; I just love him more and more.

I'd always ask my grandma, who was so, so smart, why she didn't work, and she would explain that her parents didn't approve of her working after she had children. She didn't feel like she had choices.

If more men would see a story of what it was like to be pregnant, and how it felt to be in a place where you had to make a decision about whether to keep a pregnancy, maybe they would feel differently about women's health care.

If something seems frightening or horrible, I should probably do it.

If you're not yelling at your kids, you're not spending enough time with them

I'm at a point in my life where I could make 20 more movies, but I want to make 20 more movies that matter to me.

I'm definitely happy with the way my career has gone, the success; but I even feel glad that I've experienced some failure in my life. That gives you perspective and humility about this business; it's good to realize that you're always just one movie away from not being in Vogue anymore.

I'm encouraging these women, like Cheryl Strayed, to take the jump to writing for the screen. She is adapting her book Tiny Beautiful Things for us. They're infinitely capable of tackling the format.

I'm just trying to matter and live a good life and make work that means something to somebody.

I'm lucky to find a person to share my life, and the best friend I'll ever have.

I'm not a politician, She says evenly. If I want to be one, I'll run for office. Susan Sarandon, whom I know and love, is a fantastic actress. It's her right as an American to say whatever she wants. [But] just because you're rich and famous doesn't qualify you to make political statements. I don't put my opinions out there to influence people. You have alot of influence. And sometimes I feel it's undeserved influence.

I'm trying to make it cool to be a good girl.

Is it more fascinating, perplexing, unbelievable that women are entrepreneurs?

It definitely sometimes feels like a suit that I wish I could zip off. But I don't feel bad about any of the things I've gone through, whether it's divorce or breakups or anything like that, because that's all part of the life journey, and I have those experiences just like anyone else. And I think it deepens what you tap into creatively.

It's important to do things that scare you to death!

I've been through really trying experiences personally, and your family is who you turn to.

Kids are the best part of my day. I don't wake up to make movies. I wake up to hang out with my family.

Many people worry so much about managing their careers, but rarely spend half that much energy managing their LIVES. I want to make my life, not just my job, the best it can be. The rest will work itself out.

Men rise through the ranks because of potential, but women have to prove themselves - while trying to have children and having no family leave.

More people telling stories leads to more interesting perspectives in this world. I often think we wouldn't get to these political impasses if we had balance in storytelling.

Movies will finally reflect the world we live in, not some weird dinosaur reality.

My husband is my biggest supporter on earth. He encourages me to put myself out in the world in ways that feel scary, and he's like, "I'm always gonna catch you. I'm always gonna be there for you." My supportive mother and family. Honey, it's such a village.

My kids make me laugh every day. And they're so supportive. As I get older, they understand those things I worried about - the guilt of being gone - in a way that's so healing for me, when they say, "Mom, we know you love what you do. We love to watch you do what you do."

Never drink to feel better, only drink to feel even better.

Never miss an opportunity to just shut up.

No one can sing like June Carter so I just tried to sing my very best.

No woman's getting hired because of her potential. I hope that we can invest more in female potential.

Obviously, this isn't the time in my life that I would have chosen to do this, but I feel like life gives you these challenges for a reason. I feel so happy and glad to be in the place that I am. I really feel blessed. This is something I need to face and take control of.

One honest voice is louder than a crowd.

One hundred percent my mother, who would always say, "If you want something done, do it yourself." She must have said that 100 times to me - as a child, as a young woman, yesterday on the phone.

People seem to really enjoy laughing at me.