If you know you are going to fail, then fail gloriously.
Cate Blanchett
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.
Happiness is fleeting - I think that's the main lesson I have learned.
If you age with somebody, you go through so many roles - you're lovers, friends, enemies, colleagues, strangers; you're brother and sister. That's what intimacy is, if you're with your soulmate.
I look forward to the holiday season every year.
It was only when I realized how actors have the power to move people that I decided to pursue acting as a career.
Who would want a face that hasn't seen or lived properly, hasn't got any wrinkles that come with age, experience and laughter? Not me, anyway.
There's an expression in Australia that's called 'Go Bush,' which means to get out of the city and relax. I try and 'go bush' to places where there's no cell reception. But, I don't get to do that often, so for the most part, it's just a state of mind.
The more you can remove the obstacles between you and the world as a woman, the easier and simpler life becomes.
In my career, I thought I've never wanted to get anywhere in particular. I just wanted to work with interesting people on interesting projects.
I'm one of those strange beasts who really likes a corset.
I said to Martin Scorsese, 'When are you going to make another film with a woman at the center?'
I don't like to reduce a role to fit me. The challenge to me is to expand to it. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. But that's the challenge of it.
Violence and racism are bad. Whenever they occur they are to be condemned and we should not turn a blind eye to them.
When you're directing something, you absolutely have to be involved in all layers of the process.
I care about climate change because of our children. I want to safeguard their future.
I'm not sitting on a soapbox telling women what they should and shouldn't do, but I know what works for me.
You know you've made it when you've been moulded in miniature plastic. But you know what children do with Barbie dolls - it's a bit scary, actually.
I don't know, maybe my sons will be gay.
If I had my way, if I was lucky enough, if I could be on the brink my entire life - that great sense of expectation and excitement without the disappointment - that would be the perfect state.
People who say, 'There's nothing to fear from spiders' have clearly never been to Australia.
I have the embarrassing thing where often if you're watching a film, you kind of go through the emotions and the thought stages that your character went through, but you sort of do it with Tourette's. So I end up often crying when I'm crying, and looking angry when I'm looking angry, so it's pretty ugly.
What happens a lot in film, though not so much in the theatre, is that you get stroked and sort of massaged, like a little guinea pig.
For me, I think the bigger something is, the more difficult it is to make it nimble and fleet afoot.
I think it's so easy to be judgmental of other people's decisions.
When I came out of drama school, I was in a shared house in Sydney.
When my husband turned 40, I was obsessed. 'Has he had his medical checkup?' He needed to go to the doctor; he needed to go to the dentist. Any little cough, I was really on him. Then he turned 40, and I thought, 'Maybe that's why I've been so obsessed with his health!'
There's many things that you can do with your life. It doesn't necessarily - I think if you're in a creative sphere, or if you're hungry for experience, then those experiences don't necessarily happen like rungs of a ladder or in a linear way.
Conservatism is affecting the way women perceive who they are in the world.
Planning cities is a necessary but risky business.
The Oscar is very beautiful, utterly mesmeric, but I don't feel any more important because I have won one. It doesn't mean I'm any better than anyone.
When you're stretching yourself, as a role like 'Blue Jasmine' did for me, you risk falling flat on your face.
A lot of people are frightened by old age - by being around people who are, basically, on their way out - but I'm fascinated by it. It's an amazing thing to be around someone who has had a life well lived.
Every director works differently.
I tend to use really basic creams, and I like to put an oil on, like an emu oil from Australia. It's from the emu, and it's really nourishing. I prefer an oil to a cream.
I'm not interested in playing characters who see the world through my prism; I think the journey of understanding any character is to see how they tick and how they differ from you.
I always dressed as a man when I was at school. I loved wearing a tie and a shirt, and I was always wearing suits. Annie Lennox was my hero. I was always playing men in high school.
Well, I've never looked upon myself as being a beauty, per se.
Don't you find that work, if you love it, is actually really invigorating?
We've enshrined the purity, sanctity, value, and importance of bringing children into the world, yet we don't discuss death. There used to be an enshrined period where mourning was a necessary part of going through the process of grieving; death wasn't considered morbid or antisocial. But that's totally gone.
The one thing that all great cities have in common is that they are all different.
There are certain people who prize celebrity over substance. That makes the media world go round. The media needs those people to exist.
When a gift is difficult to give away, it becomes even more rare and precious, somehow gathering a part of the giver to the gift itself.
I think sometimes when you're working consistently in film, and maybe this is just me, but you do feel quite dislocated from your audience.
I want to be able to follow the example of those extraordinary British actresses who move effortlessly from film to TV to theatre roles.
I use the Philip Kingsley range of shampoos, and they've got a great elasticiser, which is fantastic. I wrap my hair in cling film and put that on.
I'm not well read.
I don't think it's more difficult for actors to have a good marriage than anyone. I think, in the end, a really important component of any relationship is honesty, and it also comes down to luck.
Because the picture is called 'Veronica Guerin,' you expect a biopic. But it's really about the last two years of her life.
I think the height of ridiculousness was when I was playing Elizabeth in 'The Golden Age' while preparing to start shooting 'I'm Not There.' I literally finished filming Elizabethan grandeur on Friday, flew to Montreal, and started being Bob Dylan on Monday.
