Think bigger than society lets you think. And find mentors. My life is filled with people who knew me when I was 19 and had a horrible South African accent and bleach-blond hair and who believed in me in a way that was brutal. They were just unbelievable and consistent and smart. Find mentors who, every time you're with them, you're being schooled. Just absolutely schooled.

Charlize Theron

Categorized in : Thinking People Smart

I don't think you can create anything interesting from a comfort zone. You have to work from a place of fear and failure.

Charlize Theron

comfort interesting thinking

I don't believe in charmed lives. I think that tragedy is part of the lesson you learn to lift yourself up, to pick yourself up and to move on.

Charlize Theron

believe moving thinking

When a person lives a very happy life they become beautiful.

Charlize Theron

very-happy beautiful happy-life

I make a real effort to try and live in the real world and not just the dream world.

Charlize Theron

effort real dream

I think, like many women, I was judgmental toward women as they aged.

Charlize Theron

judgmental thinking

You choose the life you want for yourself, and then you just shut up and go about it. That's how I've lived my life.

Charlize Theron

you-choose shut-up want

We all understand situations where it's swim or drown. Sometimes we surprise ourselves when we start swimming and see how well we can do it.

Charlize Theron

women swimming inspiring

I was raised with the idea that you can feel sorry for yourself, but then, get over it, because it doesn't get you anywhere. There was always this awareness that you have to be responsible for yourself in order to have what you want

Charlize Theron

sorry order ideas

I was raised in a country [South Africa] with a lot of political turmoil. I was part of a culture and a generation that suppressed people and lived under apartheid regimes. I don't know how you can come out of that and not have an awareness for the world. I think that if my life had turned out any other way and I was working in a bank, I would still feel this way about it, because there's a connection to humanity that to me is really important.

Charlize Theron

country people thinking

I want my son to grow up with a mom that he could see and look at her life with all the mistakes and with all the failures and all the flaws and say, "My mom lived an authentic life. That was the life she wanted to live."

Charlize Theron

growing-up mom mistake

I hate actors who come and quote Nietzsche.

Charlize Theron

i-hate actors hate

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

Charlize Theron

playing-dress-up girl dresses

There's nothing I despise more than people trying to be something that they're not.

Charlize Theron

despise trying people

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

Charlize Theron

use life-is giving

I know that I'm only as good as I am because of the things that I allow into myself and into my soul, because that's the stuff that I project back out.

Charlize Theron

projects soul stuff

It's ironic that we've built the beauty world around 20-year-olds, when they have no f - kin' concept about wisdom, what life is about, having a few relationships below [their] belt and feeling hardships, to grow into [their] skin and feel confident within [themselves] and to feel the value of who [they] are, not because of a man or because of something like that. And I think that's such a beautiful thing.

Charlize Theron

beautiful men thinking

I do this because I'm an observer of people. That's why I want to be an actor. I'm fascinated by human beings and the circumstances they find themselves in.

Charlize Theron

actors want people

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.

Charlize Theron

reading looks travel

I like being a cog in a wheel. I like being a small aspect of a much bigger thing, and I think my interest in that takes the pressure of myself.

Charlize Theron

cogs pressure thinking

There's an instant access to luxury that I think women really appreciate.

Charlize Theron

luxury appreciate thinking