Reese Witherspoon

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’m pretty conservative or old-fashion, I should say, it’s how I grew up. I think you have to let your children be individuals, but you have to set boundaries. Ryan and I have similar ideas about all of it, you really have to support you partner in the things that are important to them and hold the line together.

I do think things were meant to happen. I’m just this little girl from Tennessee, and here I am today. I think a lot of things are just out of your hands.

I love books.

[On struggling to be taken seriously in the industry] Even now, people want to marginalize me. They want to attribute all my success to teenagers seeing my movies. I really resent it when people say, “It’s just a genre film; it’s a teen comedy.” It takes a lot of work to make these things have heart and resonance so they’re not just empty, disposable confections. But I don’t give a damn about other people’s perceptions, because I’ll show them. For women in this business, ascendancy is always a battle. It’s scrape and claw. I just try to stick to my guns and respect myself. I want to take the ingenues aside and say, “Value yourself! It’s O.K. if you have opinions!

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.

I have a wonderful shelter, which is my family. I have a wonderful relationship with my brother and sister; this makes me feel that I know always where I belong.

I’m going to let people know that it’s cool to have a child and be young and still be a good mom. It’s really tough, but I’m doing it.

The times when Barack and I are at our most relaxed are when we invite some friends over who we have known forever. And you put a little music on top of that? Some good food? It renews your spirit to get back in the game.

I’ve always wanted to be a mom at 23, 24ish, ever since I was a little girl. I’m right on schedule.

You know, it’s the silliness in me. It has always been there. I love to make people laugh. It comes from my family. My family is funny.

My father was a perfectionist. We had to hop to everything and have marvelous table manners. I could only wear navy blue and gray and white. He wanted me to be interested in tennis and horses just like a little princess, but I couldn’t stand such things.

I was bribing North to wear her butter 350’s by saying they glow in the dark. However, she made me turn off the lights to test it. She caught me lying but Kanye was on speaker phone and said don’t worry I will make them.

As children we recognized that we belonged to an unusual, even exceptional, family, but the effect was different on each of us.

Having lots of siblings is like having built-in best friends.

Family not only need to consist of merely those whom we share blood, but also for those whom we’d give blood.

I tell my children now that they are older, ‘If something happens to me… don’t make no big fuss over me. Don’t make no big expense on my funeral. Don’t put any pressure on the rest of the family. I’ve loved everybody, and I hope they loved me. But don’t create this big expense for the family.’

There’s no other love like the love for a brother. There’s no other love like the love from a brother.

I was probably 10 or 11 when I saw that, and sort of started thinking, ‘You know what? Marriage is an option. Having a family is an option. And going to school and getting your education and building your career is another really viable option that can lead to happiness and fulfillment.

I know what it’s like to be married and to live in a house with a garden, but it’s not something I’m striving for at the moment.

We let Willow cut her hair. When you have a little girl, it’s like, how can you teach her that your in control of her body? If I teach her that I’m in charge of whether or not she can touch her hair, she’s going to replace me with some other man when she goes out into the world. She can’t cut my hair, but that’s her hair. She has got to have command over her body. So when she goes out into the world, she goes out with command that it’s hers. She is used to making those decisions herself. We try to keep giving them those decisions until they can hold the full weight of their lives.