Diane Keaton quotes: about fear, speaking your mind, aging gorgeously, being done with dreams, and more.
“It’s the journey that counts, not the arrival.”
“You can see. Seeing is believing. Seeing is the gift that keeps giving. It’s much more engaging than being seen.”
“Even though all these obstacles keep coming at you, you just have to keep going through them. Because it’s worth it to do something in your life, as opposed to fantasizing about doing something.”
“Here is my biggest takeaway after 60 years on the planet: there is great value in being fearless. For too much of my life, I was too afraid, too frightened by it all. That fear is one of my biggest regrets. I have a policy about fear: it cripples the soul, so you just have to fight it.”
“What is perfection, anyway? It’s the death of creativity.”
“I think the growth of the brain is a slow process. But you do change and the more you accept change and embrace change, the better.”
“Want what you have.”
“Because too much of my life was spent waiting to be seen. Hoping to be seen, hoping to be picked. Once you realize that you aren’t looked at that way any more, other things start to happen and you have to depend on other things to get by.”
“We’re all just trying to get through the day.”
“I really wanted it. I went for that dream. I had a lot of failures, I didn’t get what I wanted and I kept going back for more. If I couldn’t get the lead, then I’d try the chorus and if I couldn’t get into the chorus, I’d try something else. I’m no longer seeking the impossible dream of the perfect life. Going after dreams can be very dangerous. Dreams can turn on you. From now on, I want to look for reality.”
“My mother was a listener. I’m a talker. I’m very comfortable talking.”
“As an actress, I’m drawn to emotion and expressing the human condition in all its forms, and I’m fortunate to have thoughts and feelings at my fingertips.”
“I’m more impulsive. I just feel, ‘What’s the difference? I’m going to say what I think.’ I’m more outspoken, less afraid.”
“My mother was really my partner in every project that I had. She was just the great enabler of my dreams.”
“The best relationships develop out of friendships.”
“Motherhood has completely changed me. It’s just about like the most completely humbling experience that I’ve ever had. I think that it puts you in your place because it really forces you to address the issues that you claim to believe in and if you can’t stand up to those principles when you’re raising a child, forget it.”
“It’s given my life a real purpose that it never had before. I was very heavily involved in myself forever. And this changes the whole landscape of your life. Your whole point of view, in a good way. In a nice way. I just think they are both miracles. And the miracle is to watch the process of a human being’s growth from the beginning of time. And each one of them is so unbelievably imaginative to me. I think it also extends your worldview about people – because you realize that each and every one of us is exceptionally special. And it also makes you realize that you have a huge responsibility to treasure that quality that everybody has, the best of them.”
“What is love between a man and a woman? Hey, it’s going to be up and down, and you’ve gotta really adjust to things. You’ve got to still be charmed by them, and also still like the person, you know?”
“Life is short and experiences with remarkable people are rare.”
“A sense of freedom is something that, happily, comes with age and life experience.”
“We can grow gracefully, or gorgeously. I pick both.”
“I never understood the idea that you’re supposed to mellow as you get older. Slowing down isn’t something I relate to at all. The goal is to continue in good and bad, all of it.”
“It’s kind of true, you do disappear off the planet if you are a middle-aged woman, but that has some advantages as well.”
“It’s very odd, being older, because in a way it’s hard to own the past, even.”
“Some people say they’re retired and it means they have time to do things they want to do. I have always had the privilege to engage in my hobbies as if they were work. And they are. So hobbies are work, but work that you want to do; they are play. Retirement? That sounds like you’re going to passively walk into the sunset and disappear.”
“I am absolutely intrigued by life, and I really want to hold onto it.”
“We can’t save the past or solve the riddle of love. But to me, it’s worth trying.”
“Choosing the freedom to be uninteresting never quite worked for me.”
“Memories are simply moments that refuse to be ordinary.”
“Nothing is ever the same. Nothing is permanent. Nothing can be trusted to be there. Nothing is safe, including home. Why lie to yourself? Every day we leave something, someone, some observation behind.”
“Humor helps us get through life with a modicum of grace. It offers one of the few benign ways of coping with the absurdity of it all.”
“This living stuff is a lot. Too much, and not enough. Half empty, and half full.”
“I’ve done all kinds of things I said I wouldn’t do and, of course, now I’m glad. Thrilled.”
“I’ve never really looked back.”
“I feel like I’m very much an ordinary woman. Except, it turns out, I’m not. Because I had all these opportunities. Because I got all these opportunities. And it’s just amazing.”
“The best part is that I’m still here and, because the end is in sight, I treasure it all more.”
“Just have fun. Smile. And keep putting on lipstick.”
