Top 216 Quotes & Sayings by Charlize Theron - Page 2

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

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

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

Looks alone won’t get you that far. It may get you in the door, but there’s always somebody younger, somebody prettier. You have to rely on something else.

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

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 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.

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

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

You have to keep evolving.

I think it's interesting that women, by nature, are way more conflicted than men.

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.

I really love having an awareness.

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.

You get yourself out there and you work hard, and you hope that word of mouth carries and one day somebody will actually step up to the plate and say, 'I believe that you can do this.'

We don't live the lives of Eskimos. We don't need to kill animals for fashion.

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

There's an instant access to luxury that I think women really appreciate.

I'm not a fan of justifying bad behavior or justifying why people are the way they are. I think that's a cop out. I don't have a lot of empathy for that.

Oh my God I am so cool.

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

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.

I was raised with the idea that you can feel sorry for yourself, but then, get over it, because it doesn't get you anywhere. There was always this awareness that you have to be responsible for yourself in order to have what you want

My whole concept in life is if you're not using it, you should give it to somebody else so they can use it.

I'm a true believer that everything happens the way it should.

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.

I don't want to live in a world with blinders on.

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

Beauty is more than skin deep.

I've never been driven by box office.

I love being a woman and I love being feminine.

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.

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 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 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'm open to anything, dude. I'm open to anything. That's what I would ask the aliens. I'd be like, "Do you watch 'Game of Thrones?'"

I'd rather put on a pair of jeans and get on my Harley and act like a guy.

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

I love that old glamour look. I think it's because I grew up on it.

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.

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.

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.

Men are like fine wines - the older they get, the better they get.

Think bigger than society lets you think. And find mentors. My life is filled with people who knew me when I was 19 and had a horrible South African accent and bleach-blond hair and who believed in me in a way that was brutal. They were just unbelievable and consistent and smart. Find mentors who, every time you're with them, you're being schooled. Just absolutely schooled.

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.

I am South African and I am so aware, even as a white, privileged South African, that even within our community of privilege the idea of talking about sex or sexual preference or sexual identity or anything like that was just, nobody ever did that and nobody ever felt comfortable doing that.

You can live vicariously through the characters you play.

I want my son to grow up with a mom that he could see and look at her life with all the mistakes and with all the failures and all the flaws and say, "My mom lived an authentic life. That was the life she wanted to live."

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.

'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."

We value some lives more than others.

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.

Tommy [ Lee Jones] doesn't suffer fools easily. I think everybody knows that, but I have great respect for someone that's very direct and very honest. I don't have thin skin so I'm okay with that.

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

People need to understand that what happens in people's homes and behind closed doors, unless you were there, you really shouldn't make any analogy or any assumption, which writers do quite a bit. It's not something I ever for one second thought about. This is not my life story, and I've never told my life story, and I have no interest in telling my life story.

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 grew up during apartheid; there was never a day in South Africa that was just great. I love that I've had success as an actor and producer, but I know the thing my children will know most about is the work I've done with HIV. Success in life is all about humanity.