Quotes from Charlize Theron

I grew up in South Africa and I would look at maps and we were at the bottom of the world. There was this whole thing up there. I was always reading encyclopedias about the world. So travel was something I was always attracted to.

And doing a film in that period, and having to really celebrate what they wore back then, how they sat and how they spoke. You know, what the etiquette was back then for a lady. All of those things are like putting on a wig and transforming yourself, which I love.

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

When I'm working I don't have room to think about myself and my own issues. It's really freeing. There is no room for me, which is really nice.

So how critics will perceive your film or your work, or whether your movie is going to make $100 million at the box office, or whether you are going to be winning any awards - well, you have no control over that.

There's always been a celebration of what is that moment, whoever I am at that moment in my life. [It] is a very real way of looking at beauty.

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

[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.

I am a relationship girl. That's kind of just how I'm made... When you're in my life, it's actually very contained.

I hate actors who come and quote Nietzsche.

I'm happy for people who want to get married. It's not my thing.

From the moment this baby came into our home, those two dogs have never been more in love. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever witnessed. People keep saying, 'Oh, you're a single mom.' I'm like, 'Actually, I'm not. I've got two boys helping.'

I think today women are very scared to celebrate themselves, because then they just get labeled.

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 have OCD, which is not fun. I have to be incredibly tidy and organized or it messes with my mind and switches off on me.

At the end, the realization is that she had to get to a place in her life where she could drop her guard and make peace with the fact that whether she had a small amount of time, that she had to kind of live it completely through, instead of living by the rules.

Hey, I'm a girl, and we like to play dress-up.

I think of myself as a highly sexual creature.

I think since I did Monster I really started understanding how hard it is for first time directors. I think there's a lot of great stories out there, but it's high risk.

I'd be unbelievably wrong to say there isn't such a thing as the right place, right time-luck.

I love being a woman and I love being feminine.

Yet there's a hunger in me still. I'm like only beginning. I feel like I still have so much to learn.

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 learned everything about love, watching 'Splash.' That's why I'm still single, so thanks Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah for that.