Sourced

• I have a history, a long history of being stereotyped as a five-foot-two woman, which is very limiting. I've worked so hard to create characters that have dignity. And I think everybody knows that I have a very pro-woman message in my work — and in my life.
  • Interview for Vogue magazine, November 2008
• I have to be honest with you. Comedy is what I want to see at the movies these days. Life is frickin' hard, man. I want to go to the movies and see people happy and enjoying themselves and having some fun. I've made other kinds of movies, for sure. But it's pretty apparent to me that's what people want. That's what I want. I enjoy those kinds of movies.
  • Interview for Vogue magazine, November 2008
• I have a good memory for certain things. And a very short memory for painful things — that's my favorite Martha Stewart quote, by the way.
  • Interview for Vogue magazine, November 2008
• You know, I used to not understand fashion, a lot of it, but I completely understood being a playwright or a screenwriter and suddenly having an actor say your words and making them come to life. That I can understand. Finally, I'm starting to understand this.
  • Interview for Vogue magazine, November 2008
• I'm always endlessly surprised about the people who come into my life, who I get to collaborate with. I feel really overwhelmed by those opportunities. But it's not like I fell off the turnip truck and suddenly became who I am. I really have worked hard for it, and I have to acknowledge that. I care about what I do, and I have a sense of pride in my work. And you can never be totally settled as an actor or artist or musician. You have to keep the fire under you, because that's what makes you better.
  • Face to Face with Reese Witherspoon, Readers Digest (September 2005)
• You spend months and months listening to the music, absorbing, practicing, working with real musicians who worked with them and getting as much of that as you can. And then the day you start shooting, you have to throw it all away. Because, they had no self-consciousness. They were natural performers and at that time, it wasn't about how you could synthesize a voice and make it appealing, it was about the natural little hiccups and the way you related a story or wrote the soul in the words you wrote. And 90% of your popularity was your performance and your interpretation of your own song. So, once we learned it all you just have to just kind of hope it all sunk in somewhere and just let it all go, cause they just had incredible confidence.
  • On making Walk the Line
  • IGN Interview with Reese Witherspoon (November 15, 2005)

Unsourced

• And you know, life is a constant learning experience. I learn so much with my kids. I read tons of books and study what they're studying.
• Being a Southern person and a blonde, it's not a good combination. Immediately, when people meet you, they think of you as not being smart.
• But listen, I'm 29 years old, I'm really lucky to be there and whatever happens I've been really blessed already. I have plenty of awards for this movie and if this was it for me I'd be really content.
• Confidence is everything in this business.
• I cook a lot, almost every night.
• I don't believe in perfection. I don't think there is such a thing. But the energy of wanting things to be great is a perfectionist energy.
• I have to turn down roles I really want to do because I can't travel. But that's okay, because you make peace with things in your mind.
• It's important to scare yourself, to do things you don't think you're capable of doing.
• My grandmother was one of the biggest inspirations of my life, she taught me how to be a real woman ... to have strength and self-respect—and to never give those things away.