Top 216 Quotes & Sayings by Charlize Theron - Page 3

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.

Pride comes from a place of real acknowledgment that somebody's actually living their life for themselves, and I want to be that example for my son.

When I'm naked, I really like to do push-ups. No. I think I really tackle it like everything else. If you're going to commit yourself to playing something, you have to be able to understand it. If you can understand it, then you can do it and go balls out with it. But, I've never been in a position where I've been like, "This doesn't feel right." I wouldn't do it, if it was that. I like the shock value of it. I think that, if you use it correctly, it's pretty effective, as long as I'm lit really, really, really well.

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.

Our mechanics are engineered so that we can survive quite a lot, but I think our need to be loved is so great that it’s the thing that damages us the most.

The thing I noticed is that a lot of times great material can get ruined if its not in the right hands.

[If you want to] ask the question what is beautiful? It's the life that you lead. It's the life that all women lead.

My mother is one of those very unusual, superb human beings-she's innately strong and incredibly smart. She created an environment for me to explore who I was.

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.

I'm very attracted to characters who don't necessarily make it easy to be loved.

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

I think we're at a time where people just want to join together and cause change. People don't want to live like this any more.

The tone is so important to a film, and that tone can really make something fall or succeed.

Life is what you make it... and nowhere close to making mine the best it can be.

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.

It's pretty impossible to be a South African and not have been personally affected by HIV or AIDS.

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

It's in the eyes, mostly. Don't listen just to the other actor's lines. Look at - and listen to - their eyes. That's where the emotion comes through.

I want to be part of the generation that stops AIDS.

One thing can make many other things happen.

It took a while for me to be able to sit in a room of studios and financiers and say, "I'm not some hoity-toity actress looking for a vanity deal - I really know how to make a film!" In order to do that, you've got to break your f-cking back.

You just don't know if you'll be around tomorrow. You just don't.

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.

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?

My interests still are my interests. That doesn't make me a bad mother. I think that makes me a really good mother, because when I go and creatively satisfy myself and those interests, I come home satisfied.

My job is to be a blank canvas & embody the characters that I'm playing.

I do think that when you're specifically working in a country like South Africa, you have to be able to be aware of the cultural truth of what people are raised in and believe in and how they function within their society.

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 .

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.

I try to hang on to as much mystery as possible. How can we go through our lives not wanting to have any element of surprise?’

I don't really talk about my personal life and I don't really talk about my relationships. I'm not a big partier. I like the simplicity of my life, and I've chosen the kind of life I really want to live. I don't think my life is boring at all.

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.

I havent lost my culture, just my accent.

I've seen people talk about how they stopped polio, that was a generation that came together and said, "Let's do this." I think in the AIDS community we've become so complacent in that, it's like we just plateaued... We've completely neglected a whole young generation that is now highly infected.

I don't like rehearsal.

I think there is a part of me that's always a little bit like, "Why would I torture myself? Just in case you forgot how big the shoes are you're walking in, take a look again"

There are very, very few brands that will be brave enough to really, completely take a step back and not to try and control what is considered beautiful.

At the end of the day, I'd much rather do a piece about people in a story that I find riveting and intriguing and moving, versus really carrying some kind of heavy political agenda on my sleeve. That's not who I am.

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.

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.

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 met a woman in Albuquerque and she came and hung out with me in the trailer. It was really just more to kind of really understand my biggest concern was always the interrogation scenes. Remember, that's why I really wanted to meet somebody because you see those scenes on TV so much.

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.

I've never been a fan of labels. I think its very easy to kind of look at somebody and just kind of throw a label on them 'They're crazy.'

I was pretty much a mess out of primary school. I really experienced a lot more of that stuff from the ages of seven to twelve, where there was a really popular girl at my school, and I was obsessed with her, like you'd go to jail for that stuff today. I'm so embarrassed to say this, but I was in tears one day, because I couldn't sit next to her.

We value men more than women... straight love more than gay love... white skin more than black skin... and adults more than adolescents.

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 want to go home, to being lonely, to being happy. It's adapting for me, and trusting. Adapting and trusting, that's my format right there.

I hate table reads. I hate anything where you have to say the words out loud.

I think a sense of humor is a very personal thing, and I don't know if I am talented enough to do romantic comedies.

I'm voting for Barack Obama. He's inspiring.

I don't really watch a lot of television, and I would watch mindless, mindless television.

Right now the institution of marriage feels very one-sided, and I want to live in a country where we all have equal rights. I have so many friends who are gays and lesbians who would so badly want to get married, that I wouldn't be able to sleep with myself [if I got married before they could].

Boys don't really like big nerdy glasses. Not so much.

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."

People always say to me, "What's wrong with Hollywood? They don't want to make female-driven movies." And that's not where the problem lies. It lies with us, in society. When we make these movies, nobody goes to see them.

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

It [Hancock] happens to be a big budget film and big star like Will Smith, but it actually has a lot of weight to it. But it was very smart and very intelligent and had this kind of historical element to it that I was fascinated by. It's not silly. It's not stupid. It's fun, but I think it's smart. I think Akiva [Goldsman] writes really interesting material and there you have it.

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.

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.