Quotes from Cate Blanchett

We keep making the same mistakes as a species, and you can usually draw it back to the fact that we are all terrified of dying. We also all think that we are going to escape it until we get to 65!

I'm not focused on what other people think of me.

I can be a real pessimist. You know that when you win an Oscar, and you walk offstage, and your first thought is: 'Oh God, I've peaked.'

Actresses can get outrageously precious about the way they look. That's not what life's about. If you starve yourself to the point where your brain cells shrivel, you will never do good work. And if you're overly conscious of your arms flapping in the wind, how can you look the other actor in the eye to respond to them?

I want to see a connected and progressive future for Australia, where we harness our greatest natural resources: sun, wind, and brain power.

I feel like I've been marinated in Australian theatre.

You can only desire something that you've already had in your life.

I do tend to move on anyway. This is a part of my life, but it doesn't rule my life.

Theater is a space where you cross over from everyday life, because there are real people in that moment moving in front of you-you're being invited to believe in a story and cross that bridge.

Passion is a quality I admire in a woman.

Look, it's one of the great mysteries of the world, I cannot answer that question. I think I'm vaguely blonde. To be perfectly frank, I don't know.

If you only exercise your soloist muscles, the other muscles quickly atrophy.

When anyone plays a mother on film, there is a whole raft of judgment in that a mother is a particular archetype or that every mother is the same. That's complete rubbish.

I miss Brighton enormously, enormously. There is so much I miss, including rain. I miss the verdant countryside.

I've an enormous respect for my mother who at the age of 39 raised three children, and I grew up with my grandmother in the household. And so it was a really strong household of women - my poor brother! It was great growing up with so many generations of women.

Armani makes a fantastic lip gloss called 'Beige 100.'

I said to Martin Scorsese, 'When are you going to make another film with a woman at the center?'

The more you can remove the obstacles between you and the world as a woman, the easier and simpler life becomes.

Things present themselves to you, and it's how you choose to deal with them that reveals who you are. We all say a lot of things, don't we, about who we are and how we think. But in the end it's your actions, how you respond to circumstance that reveals your character.

I'm one of those strange beasts who really likes a corset.

What you're trying to do as an actor is somehow trick yourself into believing that these words have never been said, and so you've got to discover them for the first time.

It is so interesting when you meet an actor in real life and they look completely different.

Ageing is something that both men and women are utterly terrified about.

When I see daughters with their fathers I wonder what that would be like, although not in a way that immobilises me.