Reese Witherspoon talks to Elle about her divorce

On dealing with hard times post-split with husband Ryan Phillipe: “Right around Christmas-time I was sitting in a parking lot and I felt like I just couldn’t get out of the car. It was like, I can’t get out of the car. Any I though, Okay, half of the parking lot has dealt with this. More than half of the parking lot has dealt with this. Okay, let’s make it a little bigger. Half of this city has dealt with this. Okay, let’s make it a little bigger-half of this country, until I finally got out of the car. It was like, it’s okay. It’s okay. There’s this moment in Walk the Line where June Carter says, ‘I was never aware of how much I was seen.’ I was very aware of how much I was seen. It was this moment of self-discovery and loss of identity and who was stepping out of the car-you know? Who is that person? Should I not be this honest?�

On the tabloids: “Everybody is hung out to dry now. It’s one think if you’re up for it and you want it, and you go out without your panties on. But if you’re wearing your panties-gosh darn it, leave me alone!�

On her favorite joke: “Why do Southern women make bad prostitutes? ‘Cuz we have to write so many thank-you notes! And so true!�

On drinking: “I think it’s great to drink in the middle of the day. I would join you, but I gotta drive to pick up the kids. You’re taking taxis everywhere. You could get drunk! You could go from appointment to appointment highly, highly smashed!�

On being fun: “I’m fun. I can be really fun. I can tell we’d have a lot of fun if the tape was off.��

On maintaining control of the relationships: “[My dad and uncle] taught me that in every relationship, the person least interested in maintaining it is going to dominate it, because they’ll never compromise. So you have to always maintain that position of least interest, and you’ll always control the relationship.�

On claims that she is always in control: “I wouldn’t be able to do what I do if I were [always in control]. I wouldn’t be able to have the empathy or the capacity to understand different lives.�

On fashion: “I don’t go in too much for the fashion stuff because I got other stuff to do. But I do appreciate people who love what they do and work hard on it.�

On winning her Oscar: “It made me realize how much I have it all! It’s real purty on my bookcase. Everybody that comes to my house, I say, ‘You can touch it, but you have to give a speech.’�

On her fear of water: “Do you ever have those dreams where you’re drowning and nobody’s helping you? And people are just standing on the bank watching you drown? Not really fun-ny! I remember three occasions where my mother dove into a pool to save a child that was drowning. Watching children by the pool…I have nightmares.�

On becoming more modest with her spending habits: “Usually, I love the beauty of a great bag. Now I see things for really how little I need them. And how much of your day, as a woman, you can really fall into that rabbit hole.�

On her parents’ emphasis on education: “The thing that was most valued was intelligence. My dad was very, very academic. And my mother’s academic. And that was sort of a standard. Anyway, that was hard to reach.�