Top 35 Meg Ryan Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The best thing about modern living is anaesthesia.”

— Meg Ryan

2. “If you empower women, you can change the world.”

— Meg Ryan

3. “When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does.”

— Meg Ryan

4. “My father says that almost the whole world is asleep, everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.”

— Meg Ryan

5. “People are always telling me that change is good. But all that means is that something you didn’t want to happen has happened.”

— Meg Ryan

6. “Any idiot can be brave, but courage is about knowing what’s at stake, and moving forward anyway.”

— Meg Ryan

7. “I love what you might call brutal elegance. Where form and function are really obvious. There is nothing easily broken in this house.”

— Meg Ryan

8. “All this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings.”

— Meg Ryan

9. “But I’d like the pie heated and I don’t want the ice cream on top I want it on the side and I’d like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it if not then no ice cream just whipped cream but only if it’s real if it’s out of a can then nothing.”

— Meg Ryan

10. “I think there’s an ongoing effort involved in trying to get a bigger perspective, trying to let go of things that limit your capacity to love and be loved or your capacity to hear and to really speak.”

— Meg Ryan

11. “Don’t you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address. On the other hand, this not knowing has its charms.”

— Meg Ryan

12. “When I wear high heels I have a great vocabulary and I speak in paragraphs. I’m more eloquent. I plan to wear them more often.”

— Meg Ryan

13. “I don’t think we realise just how fast we go until you stop for a minute and realise just how loud and how hectic your life is, and how easily distracted you can get.”

— Meg Ryan

14. “I have a very good life, so I have nothing to complain about. Sometimes, I just have existential angst.”

— Meg Ryan

15. “Ordinary people like you and me have the chance to make a tremendous difference for mothers and their children worldwide.”

— Meg Ryan

16. “Being a working mother means that you are always disappointing somebody.”

— Meg Ryan

17. “I heard that chivalry was dead, but I think it’s just got a bad flue.”

— Meg Ryan

18. “My family responsibilities don’t conflict with my career. Not at all.”

— Meg Ryan

19. “I’m a sucker for a funny script. And then, as soon as I don’t wanna be, one comes along and grabs me.”

— Meg Ryan

20. “I’ve played a heroin addict and a speed freak and dark characters throughout my career.”

— Meg Ryan

21. “Motherhood changed me because it is so fundamental what you’re doing for another person. And you are able to do it even though it takes a lot.”

— Meg Ryan

22. “Through Clinton and Monica, Clinton and Hillary, the scandal, the impeachment, Iraq, Bruce and Demi, Ellen and Anne, I have remained consistently and nauseatingly adorable. I have, in fact, been known to cause diabetes.”

— Meg Ryan

23. “Clearly romantic comedy is my franchise genre, I don’t mind saying that, it’s true. I love doing them and hopefully always will do them.”

— Meg Ryan

24. “It would be really great if people would realize that stars are only people with the same weaknesses and flaws, not immaculate idols.”

— Meg Ryan

25. “And the insidious thing is that people will either see a movie because it did well last weekend or won’t see it because it didn’t do well.”

— Meg Ryan

26. “What brings people down is the same thing over and over.”

— Meg Ryan

27. “It was not a healthy marriage for long time. It was never about another man, it was about what my and Dennis’s relationship could not sustain.”

— Meg Ryan

28. “I wouldn’t have thought of myself as a person who could guide anybody and then it turned out that I can.”

— Meg Ryan

29. “There are assumptions made about the way you look. I’m always surprised when people don’t think I’m smart.”

— Meg Ryan

30. “And who cares, five years down the road, what most movies made or didn’t make? If it’s good, it stands up.”

— Meg Ryan

31. “I don’t think I’ll ever be a producer who’s into taking the meetings and fighting the big fights with studios. I really don’t like that part. I’m much more interested in the material.”

— Meg Ryan

32. “A l lot of films I’ve done are essentially about women who are finding their voice, women who don’t know themselves well.”

— Meg Ryan

33. “It’s triumphant for someone to wake up to life. I feel a tremendous sense of liberation. You want to be able to use both your intuitive side and your go-get-’em side with no blame.”

— Meg Ryan

34. “Acting is what I do. It’s not what I solely define myself as.”

— Meg Ryan

35. “I don’t feel particularly typecast because I think I do so many different kinds of things. Whether they’re seen or not is another issue.”

— Meg Ryan