“A lot of the girls were awful, very catty. It was a competitive environment that I didn't like. You have no idea of the anorexia I saw around me.”

“Acting, and the privilege of being able to do it for a living, is so important to me. I don't turn up and just hope for the best. I really fret about it. I do my homework; I prepare myself for the experience of playing a particular character.”

“Acting is bloody scary.”

“Ah, my dad's whistle. On holidays when I was a kid, we would all be off in the rock pools along the beach. When it came time to go, we'd hear the whistle and we'd all come running. Like dogs!”

“Anyone who's been through divorce will know that every day is really hard.”

“As a woman, especially when you have children, one gets so good at soldiering on - almost too good.”

“As an adult and a parent, when I'm not acting, I'm not acting. I'm being a parent, and I'm on the school run, and I'm sewing labels onto socks. That's what I'm doing.”

“At a certain point in one's career, it's really wonderful when your child turns around and goes, 'Oh my God, Mommy, you have to be in that film. My friends are going to die.'”

“At school I used to avoid dance lessons. They were the worst.”

“Awards season is always a huge amount of fun whether you're a part of it or not. It's always really exciting seeing what films are coming and a lot of new talent as well.”

“Before 'Titanic,' yes, I had done some things and, yes, I had been nominated for an Academy Award, but I had never been sort of world-famous. And I suppose, yes, I am really famous now. But I feel embarrassed to say that because it's just a bit daft for me.”

“Being told to cut off and walk away from a child - I cannot imagine it. I think I'd rather die.”

“By nature, I'm a very positive person, and because I'm happy in myself, and in my life, and I've got a great husband, and beautiful children, and I have a job that I love that calls for a certain amount of emotional expression, I get to realise a lot of my dreams and aspirations.”

“Every woman has a mother, and every woman will have an issue with that mother and things that mother did or didn't do. It just depends on how you choose to process the lessons that you learned from your own mother.”

“Experiencing those moments of being alone... is a very, very weird flooring and exposing position to be in when you're just not used to it... But I've never been lonely. And with my kids Mia and Joe that remains the case.”

“Foie gras is sold as an expensive delicacy in some restaurants and shops. But no one pays a higher price for foie gras than the ducks and geese who are abused and killed to make it.”

“Glamour to me is about remaining graceful and understated.”

“God, my brain really goes to mush when I'm pregnant.”

“Growing up, I had a very happy childhood, with two parents who are still very much together.”

“Guy Pearce played Mike in 'Neighbors'. I would fake illness to stay off school and watch the one P.M. show, and I would also watch it again when it was repeated at 5:25 P.M. Obsessed.”

“'Harry Potter' really harnessed the imagination of so many young-adult minds, and it's the same with the 'Divergent' series.”

“'Holy Smoke' is very brave because I don't think it's easy to watch.”

“Honestly, among my acquaintances there is no woman wearing XS.”

“I am enjoying my face changing, as well as realizing that at the same time, as you get older, the machine isn't as well-oiled as it was.”

“I am insecure. If you ask me, everybody is.”

“I am not a hypocrite.”

“I am very strong. When you have children, you have to be.”

“I burp, I fart. I'm a real woman.”

“I danced a lot when I was younger, and I've always had decent, shapely legs and thought it's now or never. I mean, when you're pushing 40, are you really going to wander around in a dress that's midthigh length?”

“I did absolutely grow up in a world surrounded by people who were always performing and being flamboyant.”

“I do endless chopping and preparing things. I really find that relaxing. I do a lot of thinking as I am chopping and cooking.”

“I do have impossibly high standards.”

“I do like being busy. I'm not the kind of person who just sits around and goes to a spa when I'm not working.”

“I do think it's important for young women to know that magazine covers are retouched. People don't really look like that.”

“I don't go to the gym because I don't have time, but I do Pilates workout DVDs for 20 minutes or more every day at home.”

“I don't have parts of my body that I hate or would like to trade for somebody else's or wish I could surgically adjust into some fantasy version of what they are.”

“I don't have those great, strong, glowing pregnancies.”

“I don't know... part of, I suppose, my way out of everything, has been really taking care of myself. I think that comes from an awareness that my children really need me, and they need me to be the healthiest version of myself that I can possibly be.”

“I don't know why I'm suddenly playing nasty people. It is very fun, though, and it isn't real, at the end of the day.”

“I don't own copies of my own movies.”

“I don't read any reviews, so I'm oblivious to what they have to say. I'm completely unaware. It's fantastic.”

“I don't read magazine articles that I've been in.”

“I don't really do simple. I'm not really interested in simple at the end of the day, because nothing's ever simple, and nothing's ever perfect. People certainly aren't - I would hope, anyway, because that would be boring, wouldn't it?”

“I feel like I'm playing more of a role walking down the red carpet than when I'm playing an ordinary woman covered in sweat.”

“I feel very strongly that 'curves' are natural, womanly and real.”

“I finally moved out of my parent's house. It was only fair to let my sister have her own room.”

“I get up extremely early in the morning.”

“I had a terrible bout of acne after I turned 30.”

“I have always been, and shall continue to be, honest when it comes to bodyweight issues.”

“I have always lived an ordinary life, and always will. It's who and what has to do with my job that makes it 'unordinary.' I cook, go to the supermarket, pick my children up at school.”

“I have always wanted my children's dads to be involved in their lives. Not just the day-to-day aspect, but the emotional shifts that they go through, when little things pop up - they need to be included, absolutely, and for the children to feel that they are.”

“I have been a parent since I was 25. That's a large chunk of my adult life. Mother or father, it transforms you completely.”

“I have cellulite.”

“I have wrinkles which are very evident. I will particularly say when I look at movie posters, 'You guys have airbrushed my forehead. Please, can you change it back?'”

“I hope I'm always learning something.”

“I kept my head; I mean, I've never been one of those people who ended up in the gutter with sick in my hair.”

“I know the true meaning of getting by by the skin of my teeth; I do. It doesn't matter whether you've got money or you haven't, whether you're famous or not. This is the case for all women, actually; you have to carry on. You always have to carry on. And you can, because you have to.”

“I lend my daughter beauty products, but only as a treat. If she's going to a party, I'll let her borrow a mascara or moisturizer.”

“I like exposing myself. There's not an awful lot that embarrasses me. I'm the kind of actress who absolutely believes in exposing herself.”

“I like the diversity that my children are exposed to every day.”

“I like the idea of, not shocking people, but just throwing people off. Doing something that makes people go, 'Whoa, whoa, she did that next? Wow, didn't think she was gonna do something like that next.'”

“I like to do my own make-up.”

“I love it when a character requires me to look less than my red-carpet best.”

“I love Lancome's L'Absolu Rouge lipstick, as it lasts. Unless you spend the whole night snogging, you won't need to reapply it.”

“I love the routine. I love getting up in the morning and getting breakfast and packing lunches and doing the school run. Those things are really important to me. Because I think that those small but key moments are crucial for a kid.”

“I love to cook. I could never give that up.”

“I need to be looked after. I'm not talking about diamond rings and nice restaurants and fancy stuff - in fact, that makes me uncomfortable. I didn't grow up with it, and it's not me, you know. But I need someone to say to me, 'Shall I run you a bath?' or 'Let's go to the pub, just us.'”

“I never had a desire to be famous... I was fat. I didn't know any fat famous actresses... You know, once a fat kid, always a fat kid. Because you always think that you just look a little bit wrong or a little bit different from everyone else. And I still sort of have that.”

“I never had crushes on anybody when I was younger; I really didn't.”

“I never saw 'Titanic' as a springboard for bigger films or bigger pay cheques. I knew it could have been that, but I knew it would have destroyed me.”

“I often look at women who wear great jeans and high heels and nice little T-shirts wandering around the city, and I think, 'I should make more of an effort. I should look like that.' But then I think, 'They can't be happy in those heels.'”

“I really believe in, 'Move on, live and let live, forgive and forget.'”

“I resent that there is an image of perfection that is getting thinner and thinner. I've got a lovely husband and children, and I didn't lose weight to find those things.”

“I suffered from 'No one will ever fancy me!' syndrome, well into my teens. Even now I do not consider myself to be some kind of great, sexy beauty. Absolutely not.”

“I think any form of self-expression is half confidence, half sheer hard work and, maybe, a bit of talent thrown in.”

“I think confidence does come with time, and I've been really surprised by that, actually.”

“I think heartbreak is something that you learn to live with as opposed to learn to forget.”

“I think I can see more clearly now - about how the pattern of past experiences has shaped who I am and the characters I have played - and I'm grateful for that.”

“I think I'm developing a kind of subconscious loathing of the word 'franchise.' I just think of something that's packaged, something you can buy on a shelf and is immediately disposable. I don't know. It's a really weird word for me.”

“I think it's very important to teach your children to struggle on some level.”

“I think more and more people these days go for the safe option in film making.”

“I think of myself as a mum who finds the time to go to work. I have to check myself for baby sick before I walk out of the house in the morning. I am really a mum... I know I am a great mother.”

“I think there's a lot of pressure on young people to really be the thing that everyone is telling them that they are, opposed to discovering it for themselves.”

“I want to end up like Judi Dench. I want to have nice consistent work, doing lovely things, no matter how big or small they might be. I'd like to turn into a wise old thing.”

“I want to keep my health and my sanity and be well and feel happy. Plus, I want to have fun.”

“I wanted to play incredibly challenging, multifaceted characters. Because we are all a puzzle.”

“I was 17 when Peter Jackson asked me to be in 'Heavenly Creatures.'”

“I was a wayward child, very passionate and very determined. If I made up my mind to do something, there was no stopping me.”

“I was always quite good with accents - I always had quite a good ear - so from the age of about 13, I used to do a lot of voiceover and dubbing for foreign films.”

“I was living in my lovely little two-bedroom flat in north London... and suddenly, I couldn't just walk down the street and buy a pint of milk.”

“I was suddenly really famous, and I didn't know how to cope. I didn't know myself well enough as a person, number one, and as an actor, number two. I wanted to escape.”

“I was the kid who never won the races. I never jumped the highest. I wasn't on the list of the high-achieving.”

“I was the kid who never won the races... I wasn't on the list of the high-achieving.”

“I was very, very thrown by the fact that I had to make some big changes in my life in order to be myself, but under this kind of movie-star banner.”

“I will tell you that when I was heavy, people would say to me - and it was such a backhanded compliment - they would say, 'You've got such a beautiful face,' in the way of, like, 'Oh, isn't it a shame that from the neck down you're questionable.'”

“I won't allow magazines in the house. When I was younger, I wanted to have my hair cut like so-and-so in the class above me at school, not somebody in a magazine. You see young girls trying to dress like so-and-so because they've seen lots of pictures of them.”

“I would like to one day play a man. That is something I do know. I don't know what kind of man. I don't know if that would ever happen or not. It would be the ultimate challenge.”

“I wouldn't dream of working on something that didn't make my gut rumble and my heart want to explode.”

“I'd much rather be known as some curvy Kate than as some skinny stick.”

“I'd never want to do something just for the show of it.”

“I'd rather do theatre and British films than move to L.A. in hopes of getting small roles in American films.”

“If I had a child, I wouldn't let them go to drama school. At times, I was really unhappy there.”

“If I'm going to change, my life and experiences should change me for the wiser and more profound.”

“I'll eat one cookie, not a whole box of cookies. But I'll still eat the one cookie... sometimes two, or even three. But not the whole box.”

“I'm no stranger to the occasional dodgy juice, but it doesn't taste very nice and it is bloody boring. It's not a way to live.”

“I'm not a believer in hiding things from my kids because ultimately they are going to have questions - they feel things.”

“I'm not a gardener. I wish I was.”

“I'm not afraid to admit that I'm a relatively slow reader.”

“I'm not the kind of person who's going to look at the top of a mountain and go, 'Oh, look at that! That's lovely. That's lovely, that top of that mountain.' I'm the kind of person who's going to go, 'Oh, my God! That's so lovely! Let's go climb up it!'”

“I'm not the pedigree kid. I'm not classically trained. I didn't come from the fancy home, no.”

“I'm not very technically minded. I mean, I don't know how to do e-mail on computers.”

“I'm obsessed with 'Top Chef'.”

“I'm often drawn to characters that are more obviously one thing. They're passionate, and there is always an element of strength because I think every person possesses that in some way, even if they've experienced hardship in their lives.”

“I'm really happy in my own skin.”

“In films I might look glamorous, but I've been in hair and make-up for two hours.”

“In order to maintain that fire for acting and capture its essence, you can't let yourself be concerned with what people have to say about you. You just can't.”

“It doesn't make any sense... that's why I trust it!”

“It doesn't matter how old you are or what you do with your life, you will never stop needing your mum. And I will never stop needing mine, so thanks, Mum.”

“It makes me sound like a domestic freak, but I care very much about my kids' nutrition.”

“It's funny when someone says to you 'you're hot' and all that, because I don't think of it in that way.”

“It's important that period films aren't seen as just a lovely visual exercise.”

“It's really weird 'cause when you're 21 you think, 'Oh God, when I'm 36, oh God, that's nearly 40, and I'll look really old and wrinkly by then.' And actually, I quite like the way I look.”

“It's true that you need much time to get rid of the fat girl you once were, but you know I am sincerely grateful for my buttocks.”

“It's very easy to be judgmental until you know someone's truth.”

“It's very tempting to have a nanny and live in a gated community and have a chef - I'd love to have a few dinners cooked for me. But I don't want that for my children. When they're older, if people say to them, 'Did you have a chef?' I want them to be shocked by the question.”

“I've decided I am going to start loving my backside because I don't know anyone who does that.”

“I've decided I am going to start loving my backside because I don't know anyone who does that. And for my daughter, I want to be able to say to her, 'I love this.'”

“I've had a very full and lovely career so far, and I can't honestly say that I've ever really found myself in a man's world, struggling for an identity or trying to prove something.”

“I've never left them to go do a film. No, we all go together. I could never leave them. My kids are my whole world.”

“I've never really been a girly-girl.”

“Jane Campion is a tough director.”

“Jim Cameron is a feisty man and a perfectionist, but also absolutely brilliant.”

“Just because society, and government, and whatever was different 100 years ago, doesn't mean that people didn't have sex, pick their nose, or swear.”

“Kitchens are so important. They're the heart of everything.”

“Let me tell you, 'The Reader' was not glamorous for me in terms of the body-hair maintenance.”

“Life is short, and it is here to be lived.”

“Look, I'm not a blockbuster star.”

“Lots of male friendships begin as a cheeky snog. Or a little undercurrent of flirtation.”

“Love to me, God, this is so difficult... To me, love is when you meet that person and you think, 'This is it, this is who I'm supposed to be with.'”

“Loving someone is setting them free, letting them go.”

“Marriage has made me safer.”

“Mildred Pierce was capable of great acts of love as a mother.”

“Mothers who work full time - they're the real heroes.”

“Mum and Dad were very much friends and up for life. There was no anxiety for anything when I was growing up; they just taught me to be me.”

“My body will never go back to what it was, and I wouldn't expect it to after three babies.”

“My children can't see many of the films that I've been in because I'm always either dying or taking my clothes off.”

“My dad was very much a struggling actor and spent more of his life as a postman, as a member of a tarmac firm, as a van driver.”

“My grandparents - both of my mother's parents - were actors, and they ran the Reading Repertory Theatre Company, through the town of Reading, where I come from.”

“My husband is not a jealous person in any way.”

“My job as the actress playing Hanna Schmitz, as the actress playing any part, is to understand the character, and to ultimately love the character. And I did love Hanna, absolutely, because I understood her as profoundly as I did at the end of the day.”

“My kids don't go back and forth; none of this 50/50 time with the mums and dads. My children live with me; that is it.”

“My life has taken me down several different paths I never expected it to take me down. Not in a million years.”

“My parents didn't have any money.”

“My parents met because my father was an actor friend of one of my mom's brothers, but my mother has never set foot on the stage - she's quite shy. So it's a strange thing because people say, 'Oh, coming from acting parents,' when the idea of acting would literally make my mother just want to throw up.”

“My skin still crawls if you call me a movie star. I get embarrassed. I think, don't be ridiculous. Maybe it's because I'm British. To me, Julia Roberts that's a movie star. But when people do call me one, that, I think, is an enormous compliment but, my God, is that a responsibility!”

“No one can look bad when you've been lit for six hours.”

“No one has a right to comment on anyone's life or the choices I do or don't make.”

“Oh, I had, 'No one will ever fancy me!' I had that well into my teens. Even now I do not consider myself to be some kind of great, sexy beauty. I don't mind the way I'm ageing. No reason to panic just yet. I think I look my age, and that's fine.”

“One of the reasons I've never done intensive psychotherapy or any of that stuff is that if there's anything in me that needs fixing, I want to know that I can rely on my own intuition to fix it.”

“One of the things that I was always, and still am, is quite resourceful.”

“One thing I love about being back is English rain. Looking out of the window now, it's raining, and the sky is dark; I love it. To me, those are reassuringly English things. I love it when it rains.”

“People still do fall in and out of love and can and cannot express what they feel and are very much pained because the person they love is with somebody else. That's happening the whole world over, and I think it always has been.”

“Plastic surgery and breast implants are fine for people who want that, if it makes them feel better about who they are. But, it makes these people, actors especially, fantasy figures for a fantasy world. Acting is about being real being honest.”

“Playing Juliet in 'Heavenly Creatures' changed my life, and the role of Clementine in' Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' opened many new doors creatively.”

“Real luxury is having the time to read endless stories in bed with my children. And I get that all the time. I'm so blessed.”

“'Revolutionary Road' is a fascinating study of the human condition of a fragmenting marriage and the torment that these two people put themselves through in their efforts to try and find happiness and try and stay together, actually.”

“Since I was 13 or 14 I've always felt older than I actually am.”

“Single mums do come in for a hard time. Society is incredibly judgmental. I know this.”

“So I won an Oscar. It's amazing. I've got that for the rest of my life for a performance I am proud of. It nearly killed me. I am really proud of the film. That's it, moving on.”

“Sometimes people ask, 'What do you wish for your children?' and all I say is, 'I want them to be happy being them.'”

“Sure, I could have lots of people who do the cooking, the driving, all that jazz - but I would be unhappy. I wouldn't want my children raised that way.”

“Thank God I'm in touch with my emotions enough to be able to pick up my children, kiss them all over and say 'I love you' over and over.”

“The countryside, particularly, is very good for my head.”

“The early stage of pregnancy for me is quite hard to hide.”

“The experience of making a movie is far removed from watching the end result. It's exciting, but it still makes me squirm.”

“The good and bad things are what form us as people... change makes us grow.”

“The happiness I feel in having a family has brought me a real beauty.”

“The highest compliment I could ever receive about my kids - and I can say that this does happen frequently - is when the in-flight crew say to me, 'Your children are wonderful. They are so well-behaved.' Every time I am told that, I could weep.”

“'The Reader' is about a young man's experience of falling in love with somebody who, it turns out, made some choices that were unavoidable in her life that resulted in horrific crimes against humanity.”

“The things that make me happiest in the whole world are going on the occasional picnic, either with my children or with my partner; big family gatherings; and being able to go to the grocery store - if I can get those things in, I'm doing good.”

“The whole concept of 'grounding' children is utterly stupid - they just go off and rebel and don't like you. When my kids eventually come along, I don't want them to not like me.”

“There are moments to indulge and enjoy, but I always know when it's time to go home and wash my knickers.”

“There were nineteen years between my grandparents, and I was in a relationship for five years from the age of fifteen to twenty with a man who was thirteen years older than me who remains one of the loves of my life, and he passed away when I was twenty years old.”

“There's a lot of judgement that can come from outside sometimes, and there's media scrutiny that is placed on a lot of women in the public eye, and I just couldn't care less. I really couldn't care less.”

“There's always going to be a part of me that worries about not looking as slim as other actresses.”

“There's more to life than cheek bones.”

“There's not an awful lot that embarrasses me. I'm the kind of actress that absolutely believes in exposing myself.”

“There's nothing bloody wrong with wanting it at all.”

“Those days of every child having a mummy and daddy who lived at home - Daddy went to work, and Mummy stayed at home and took care of everyone - those days have almost gone, and it's so much more unconventional now.”

“To back away from fear is the worst thing you can do. Fear shows.”

“To produce foie gras, ducks and geese are force-fed enormous amounts of grain and fat, which causes their livers to swell to many times the normal size.”

“Weirdly, when I'm playing an English person, I feel like I've got nothing to hang on to, and it feels a bit strange and exposing.”

“What I am very, very moved and struck by is that so many people in the world are often living a life that they hadn't planned for themselves. And they wake up one day and say, 'Hang on. Who am I? Is this really me? Is this what I really wanted?' And also, 'Can I change it? Have I got the courage to change it?'”

“What I've learned about acting is that it needs to be mysterious. If you overthink how a beat needs to be played, it can trip you up.”

“When I first met Alan, I was absolutely terrified. I was 19, he was Alan Rickman, and he's got that voice, and I remember meeting him in the hair and make-up trailer and thinking, 'I'm going to die. He thinks I'm rubbish. Why am I here?'”

“When I first read the script for 'A Little Chaos,' I just loved reading it, as it is a really lovely, accessible, contemporary period film.”

“When I think about somebody like Keira Knightley, whom I don't particularly know, I see somebody who is working hard, really trying to challenge herself and make smart choices in spite of people criticising her size and performances.”

“When I was doing 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' I was asked, 'If there was one part of your life that you could erase, what would it be?' And I was so stunned by that. I thought: 'Nothing.' I would keep all the good bits and the bad bits, because those things made me who I am.”

“When I was heavy, people would say to me - and it was such a backhanded compliment - they would say, 'You've got such a beautiful face,' in the way of, like, 'Oh, isn't it a shame that from the neck down you're questionable.'”

“When you're 21, you think, 'Oh God, when I'm 36, oh God, that's nearly 40 and I'll look really old and wrinkly by then.' And actually, I quite like the way I look.”

“Whenever I go to L.A., the make-up artist or hairdresser will end up having a conversation about how fat they think they are, and I really just can't take it seriously at all.”

“Winning the Oscar was like winning all the prizes in one single night that I never won as a kid.”

“With a bright-red party lipstick, just go with lots of mascara and keep everything else clean.”

“You can't choose who you fall in love with, you know?”

“You have to forgive me because I have a habit of not winning things.”

“You know why I fear people's judgment? Because I know they're judging. I know they are.”

“You learn from things that you experience in life. I'd never want to say that I regret anything or that anything was a mistake. Honestly, that isn't how I have chosen to live my life.”

“You see, I was never a big fan of contemporary movies because they always make actresses and actors look too perfect.”