Top 70 Keira Knightley Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Empathy is the main thing, putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes and trying not to judge.”

— Keira Knightley

2. “I see the world through my eyes. It’s sometimes a strange world.”

— Keira Knightley

3. “Be happy in your body. It’s the only one you’ve got, so you might as well like it.”

— Keira Knightley

4. “If only I wasn’t an atheist, I could get away with anything. You’d just ask for forgiveness and then you’d be forgiven. It sounds much better than having to live with guilt.”

— Keira Knightley

5. “I don’t think that you can fake warmth. You can fake lust, jealousy, anger; those are all quite easy. But actual, genuine warmth? I don’t think you can fake it.”

— Keira Knightley

6. “It’s all about perfection, isn’t it?”

— Keira Knightley

7. “You have to learn the rules to be able to know how to break them.”

— Keira Knightley

8. “I have no idea whether I am completely sane. I don’t think anybody is. I see the world through my eyes. It’s sometimes a strange world. I hope I don’t hurt people. You hope not to hurt yourself too much, either. Maybe that’s the definition of keeping yourself in check?”

— Keira Knightley

9. “I like watching films when I don’t know anything about the people.”

— Keira Knightley

10. “I’m a tomboy beanpole? I can’t use a computer, so maybe I’m a bit out of the loop. I don’t know whether to be flattered or not flattered. The beanpole bit, is that good? Can you be a sexy beanpole?”

— Keira Knightley

11. “My upbringing is why I am the person I am today. I have very wise parents.”

— Keira Knightley

12. “You bring yourself to every role, it doesn’t matter who it is, it doesn’t matter if it’s a mass murderer, you can bring something to it.”

— Keira Knightley

13. “I’ve got a lot of experience with anorexia – my grandmother and great-grandmother suffered from it, and I had a lot of friends at school who suffered from it. I know it’s not something to be taken lightly and I don’t.”

— Keira Knightley

14. “My mum says that I was born 45, and I do remember at six thinking that I should be earning my own living.”

— Keira Knightley

15. “Nice is the worst word.”

— Keira Knightley

16. “I see a pair of shoes I adore, and it doesn’t matter if they have them in my size. I buy them anyway.”

— Keira Knightley

17. “Half of my mum’s family is Welsh. I remember when I was a kid she used to read to me, and witches and wizards in books always had a Welsh accent, so I guess I took it from that really.”

— Keira Knightley

18. “You already feel unsure of yourself, and then you see your worst fears in print. It really knocked me – which is why, I think, I was working, working, working, because I was trying to run away from the fact that I thought I couldn’t do it.”

— Keira Knightley

19. “Well, the thing about great fictional characters from literature, and the reason that they’re constantly turned into characters in movies, is that they completely speak to what makes people human.”

— Keira Knightley

20. “Prince William definitely isn’t my type, he’s too horsey-looking.”

— Keira Knightley

21. “I totally agree. I hate knowing too much when I’m going to the cinema and watching as a viewer. I don’t want to know that the actor has just gone through a divorce. I don’t want to know that the person is an alcoholic. It just gets in the way of my pleasure of watching the character on the screen.”

— Keira Knightley

22. “I think women’s bodies are a battleground and photography is partly to blame. Our society is so photographic now, it becomes more difficult to see all of those different varieties of shape.”

— Keira Knightley

23. “It’s an interesting thing when you discover something about yourself. To go: ‘Wow, I’m not the person I thought I was. I’m in the middle of something and I can’t actually deal with it.’”

— Keira Knightley

24. “I don’t have a problem with my body. I’m not just going to strip off all my clothing, but if the part calls for it and I don’t think there’s any way round, I’m absolutely fine.”

— Keira Knightley

25. “I don’t want to deny my femininity. But would I want to be a stay-at-home mother? No. On the other hand, you should be allowed to do that, as should men, without being sneered at.”

— Keira Knightley

26. “In film as a medium, you’re often given a baddie and a goodie and told what to think about them; it’s usually a very definite point of view.”

— Keira Knightley

27. “I love costume dramas, I love performing in them, because in a funny kind of way, you feel more free. You know about the period, you can read the books, you can see the paintings, but you’ve never actually going to know what it was like. You can kind of stretch those boundaries a bit.”

— Keira Knightley

28. “I am a slow reader. I always loved words, which is a strange thing given that I couldn’t actually read them.”

— Keira Knightley

29. “I think quite often when you have a hell of a lot more money and time, as you very much do on a big studio film, you don’t necessarily have to make the decisions right there. You can always goback and reshoot it.”

— Keira Knightley

30. “Some people say Dylan Thomas mischievous, he’s a child, and other people say he’s quite demonic. I don’t think we should dictate about him, if that’s your view of him, that’s wonderful, but it’s great to know that other people think differently.”

— Keira Knightley

31. “The thing I love about acting is getting to change and look at different people in different lives and do different projects.”

— Keira Knightley

32. “I’ve always gravitated towards people who are extreme. Whether its drugs, or kicking down doors. Normally, the people in my life had to escape to get back.”

— Keira Knightley

33. “I made a conscious decision to live my life the best way I could and that meant to publicise myself as little as possible.”

— Keira Knightley

34. “It’s very rare to get a film script that has good dialogue. A lot of the time, you spend on film sets really fighting to find out how to say the words.”

— Keira Knightley

35. “A lot of times in cinema today the women are overly sentimental, so I constantly try to do the opposite. I like strident women.”

— Keira Knightley

36. “I find it difficult to see the romance in digital.”

— Keira Knightley

Featured in: Romance Quotes

37. “I cook. I go to farmers markets in London and cook really good sort of organic foods.”

— Keira Knightley

38. “Beauty is everywhere. And my photography came naturally without any particular inspirations growing up.”

— Keira Knightley

39. “In LA, I’m twice the size- height and everything else- of most of the other actresses who are going for an audition.”

— Keira Knightley

40. “And we’re fortunate if we have parents who are great and loving and inspiring. But, unfortunately, there are people who don’t have that.”

— Keira Knightley

41. “I tried college for three months but I was desperately unhappy. I just wanted to perform. I was getting straight As but I had no friends and cried every day.”

— Keira Knightley

42. “The celebrity thing’s completely crazy. I think I just have to move away or give it up altogether. I couldn’t have kids in the situation I’m in now. But I could just do something else. That’s probably what’s going to happen. I made a decision very recently that I want a life instead.”

— Keira Knightley

43. “I think it doesn’t matter where you’re from, we all need a bit of romance.”

— Keira Knightley

Featured in: Romance Quotes

44. “If I don’t do this film. I’ll be acting in corsets for the next 20 years.”

— Keira Knightley

45. “I don’t quite understand what Tolstoy’s actual personal view of Anna is – whether he likes her or hates her, whether she’s the heroine or the antiheroine.”

— Keira Knightley

46. “It’s not everyday you get to do a pirate movie, you might as well go for it.”

— Keira Knightley

47. “I’ve had my body manipulated so many different times for so many different reasons, whether it’s paparazzi photographers or for film posters.”

— Keira Knightley

48. “Because it does feel important to say it really doesn’t matter what shape you are.”

— Keira Knightley

49. “I wish I was Sienna Miller. When I talk to her, I hope a bit of her party personality will rub off on me, but it never does.”

— Keira Knightley

50. “I wasn’t allowed to do commercials. I wasn’t allowed to do TV series. I wasn’t allowed to do soaps or basically anything that would mean I missed too much school.”

— Keira Knightley