Reese Witherspoon

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’m not perfect! I’m human. I make mistakes. But I try to be as conscious as I can about things I should be. If I’m going to do something commercial and mainstream and made for the masses, I just believe you can make those kinds of films with quality – and good ideas and good intentions. There’s a lot of negativity out there.

Attending an all-girls school has its advantages, there are no inhibitions. You can walk to school with your zit cream on and your hair in rollers and nobody cares.

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.

[asked about the ways she is discriminated against] I get discriminated against in three ways: I get discriminated against because I’m blond, I get discriminated against because I’m an actress and I get discriminated against because I’m from the South.

And you know, life is a constant learning experience. I learn so much with my kids. I read tons of books and study what they’re studying.

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

Don’t find fault, find a remedy; anybody can complain.

There is no reality, only perception.

There is a great difference between worry and concern. A worried person sees a problem, and a concerned person solves a problem.

I never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody’s business but my own.

One of the hardest things for a parent to have to do is to tell your children that your other parent has died.

Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.

I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.

The quickest way to become troubled is to be concerned with what people say about your work.

Being both soft and strong is a combination very few have mastered.

Once you discover that you can, then you must.

I grew up in a very masculine environment. So I was around a lot of men, my brothers and their friends. There was just a lot of guys around.

Time wounds all heels.

Experience is the harvest of life, and every harvest is the result of a sowing. The experience which young people must crave is that of success in some service for which they are naturally fitted.

Failure is no accident.