Diane Keaton, the Academy Award–winning actress, fashion icon, and singular screen presence, died today at the age of 79.
Born Diane Hall on January 5, 1946, in Los Angeles, she adopted her mother’s maiden name after entering the Actors’ Equity union, where another Diane Hall already existed. After an early stage career — including Hair and Play It Again, Sam — she made her film debut in Lovers and Other Strangers (1970).
Her breakthrough came when Francis Ford Coppola cast her as Kay Adams in 1972’s The Godfather, a role she reprised in its sequels. Her defining moment arrived in 1977, when she starred as Annie Hall in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall — a role that earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress and cemented her offbeat, androgynous style.
Over a career spanning more than five decades, Keaton appeared in more than 60 films, including Reds, Marvin’s Room, The First Wives Club, Father of the Bride, and Something’s Gotta Give. She earned three additional Oscar nominations (for Reds, Marvin’s Room, and Something’s Gotta Give) and garnered numerous accolades along the way.
On screen and off, Keaton was celebrated for her wit, emotional intelligence, and unwavering authenticity. Her signature wardrobe — men’s ties, bowler hats, oversized jackets, white socks — became inseparable from her public persona. She also wrote memoirs (Then Again, Brother & Sister, Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty) and engaged in photography and design.
Keaton never married but adopted two children — daughter Dexter in 1996 and son Duke in 2001. She is survived by them and a legion of fans, collaborators, and admirers who valued her singular voice and spirit.
In 2022, she was honored in a hand and footprint ceremony outside the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. “I don’t think about my film legacy,” she said at the event. “I’m just lucky to have been here at all in any way, shape or form. I’m just fortunate. I don’t see myself anything other than that.”
Below, 40 of Keaton’s most memorable quotes.
Diane Keaton quotes
- “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.”
- “The best relationships develop out of friendships.”
- “Relationships are hard. You’re lucky if you find someone.”
- “I have a policy about fear: It cripples the soul, so you just have to fight it.”
- “A sense of freedom is something that, happily, comes with age and life experience.”
- “Choosing the freedom to be uninteresting never quite worked for me.”
- “Babies laugh three thousand times a day. Adults twenty, if we’re lucky.”
- “Don’t give up on yourself. So you make a mistake here and there; you do too much or you do too little. Just have fun. Smile. And keep putting on lipstick.”
- “I don’t think that because I’m not married it’s made my life any less. That old maid myth is garbage.”
- “We can grow gracefully, or gorgeously. I pick both.”
- “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.”
- “The exhausting effort to control time by altering the effects of age doesn’t bring happiness.”
- “My mother was really my partner in every project that I had. She was just the great enabler of my dreams.”
- “Memories are simply moments that refuse to be ordinary.”
- “This living stuff is a lot. Too much, and not enough. Half empty, and half full.”
- “Acting is a wild ride, shared in the company of other actors.”
- “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.”
- “It’s the journey that counts, not the arrival.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “I’m a hoarder. For me, documentation has always been key, and I’ve kept everything from my past.”
- “I’ve done all kinds of things I said I wouldn’t do and, of course, now I’m glad. Thrilled.”
- “We can’t save the past or solve the riddle of love. But to me, it’s worth trying.”
- “Why black and white? Because color can be too demanding.”
- “I used to listen to Judy Garland all the time … But I started to realize that if you keep singing like that, singing songs of being victimized by love over and over and over again, it can’t help but have a profound effect on your life.”
- “For a while you think, ‘Oh, you have to have someone in your life to be fulfilled.’ Now I don’t feel that way for a second.”
- “Permanence can only be found in the immortality offered by the click of a camera. Like it or not, life moves on as fleetingly as the photograph is enduring.”
- “No one can predict who is going to touch your heart in a way that changes your very being.”
- “Why lie to yourself? Every day we leave something, someone, some observation behind.”
- “The best part is that I’m still here and, because the end is in sight, I treasure it all more.”
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