I do finish reading a script and say, Why are they making it and what are they talking about? I like to try and be responsible in my choices in that way.

Everything changes as a mother. Yes, work has changed. The projects that I choose are even more important to me now. The world he's growing up in and the kind of stimulus that is out there; they are so precious and I'd do anything to protect him.

I try to do a lot of research beforehand so I know where I want to go with a scene. I try not to get too stressed about it, because I find that's the worst thing.

I had a good time working with Russell Crowe, Ron Howard and Ed Harris. It was a great cast and Russell worked really hard, doing tons of research and questioning everything.

I can't comment on any outside perception. I'm happy to come out and talk about movies that I've worked on in a setting like this. Otherwise, I have my own life that I live which is very different and private.

That's a great feeling to know that I'm going into a project that I have no idea what will become of that movie, but I really trust Ang Lee. And I really trusted Ron. It's just really nice to work with people that you feel that way about.

Dark Water was one of my favourite films to shoot because of Walter. I had seen the previous films he had directed, Central Station and Motorcycle Diaries, and I thought they were great. I really trusted him.

I don't always like my own behavior. I haven't known anyone who is perfect all the time.

When it's good it's great, it's really great.

You can't predict what someone else is going to do and when someone else is going to leave.

I try to stay focused on my life and do try not to be brought into the Hollywood fantasy.

I've chosen not to live in Hollywood, and instead I live in Brooklyn, New York. It's how I like to live. I'd rather hang out with my kids and family when I'm not working. Going to premieres is not my idea of a fun night out.

If you get too attached to how you want it to come out the other side, you freeze. I try to trust that it will work out in the end.

I didn't expect to win the Oscar. You grow up watching the Oscars on TV and you think it happens to fancy people. It was really surreal.

Growing up, being watched from the outside... it's kind of very taxing and maybe I should just do some kind of manual labor-it might be more relaxing. But I can't, it's not in my nature.

I felt for a long time that this is what I want to do so I'm happy at this point to just take my time and work on projects that I feel strongly about, and the rest of the time just live my life.

I do finish reading a script and say, Why are they making it and what are they talking about? I like to try and be responsible in my choices in that way.

I don't know if I was a star. I was certainly working a lot and that was strange because there were good things about it and things that were difficult.

It's funny looking at yourself. You know how it is when you look back at old pictures? It's just funny looking back at yourself walking and talking at age 14.

I'm so happy in the projects that I'm able to make, to be involved in projects like this. This isn't always where it was at for me, I started working when I was a kid. I'm just a different person now, I'm 30. I started working when I was 11 and it's a different ballgame.

We live in downtown Manhattan and we have pretty big windows that looked right at the World Trade Center. I was home along with Kai and we watched it all happen. I was holding him in my arms and we were looking out the window when the second plane hit.

People who are incapable of having any kind of intimate relationship have to turn to feeling this incredible hunger and void, have to turn to some quantifiable external product to make them feel whole.

It was, when I read it, I thought, such a beautiful script. I loved the story. I thought it was well handled. I thought it was even more moving because it was a true story and that made it even more poignant.

You have choices to make about what you do with the rest of your life.

I've seen many actors go awry by making the wrong choices early on.

But there is no obvious reason for holding that some normal adults are entitled to make choices for other normal adults, as paternalists of both left and right believe.

What I think we need to do to engage the American people in a conversation about entitlement reform is to have a bipartisan group of people who come together and put every solution on the table, every alternative on the table. And then we ought to engage in a long conversation with the American people so they understand the choices.

The key to accepting responsibility for your life is to accept the fact that your choices, every one of them, are leading you inexorably to either success or failure, however you define those terms.

I have a tendency to be lucky and make the right choices based on limited information.

One day I actually took the list into the bathroom and I put it up against my face and looked in the mirror and I realized I had one of two choices, change the list or change myself.

We need to teach the next generation of children from day one that they are responsible for their lives. Mankind's greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear.

Really, what are the options? Levi's or Wranglers. And you just pick one. It's one of those life choices.

Some of those STINKIN' press people just had to make fun of my decision in joining the show. They also made fun of other choices in my life that I was proud of then and still am now!!!

I'm pro responsible choice. You know, there is choice to abstain, choice to do contraception. There are all kinds of good choices.

I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we're lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear, and it's worse than fear - it's active disengagement.

Social Security must be preserved and strengthened. But we need to be candid about the costs and willing to make the tough choices that real reform will require.

We have good security. It's hard to get in here. Barring a tactical entry where terrorists come in and hold us hostage, that's about the only thing that could possibly warrant me carrying a gun in the clubhouse. That's highly unlikely, and I admit that. But my personal belief is I don't want to suffer from the poor choices of others.

The futures and ultimate fates of the characters in The Snow Queen are profoundly changed by choices made in their own minds or hearts, as well as choices unexpectedly forced on them by things beyond their control.

Every person has free choice. Free to obey or disobey the Natural Laws. Your choice determines the consequences. Nobody ever did, or ever will, escape the consequences of his choices.

I truly don't have any formula for the choices I make.

In life there are no problems, that is, objective and external choices; there is only the life which we do not resolve as a problem but which we live as an experience, whatever the final result may be.

Under the leadership of this President, the state of the union is not strong. We are being pulled apart rather than pulling together. Our democracy is suffering from the choices being made, and yet we are offered the same tired excuses and unrealistic analyses.

We've got the wind at our back right now. Americans are waking up to the realities of their previous choices. We must keep America moving back to preeminence because our values and conservative ideas are the world's greatest hope.

When I make a film I'm away from home for two to three months. So I want my kids to look at my films one day and say, I love his movies, I love his choices-because he loved them.

In Endless Quest books, you start the plot, and the character has to make choices. Then you have to write one choice over here, one choice over there. The author might get one or two choices out.

There's almost a fear that if you understood too deeply the way you arrived at choices, you could become self-conscious. In any case, many ideas which are full of personal meaning seem rather banal when you put words to them.

People assume I'm out there having this great life, but money doesn't erase the pain. When you're young you barrel through life, making choices without thinking of repercussions. A few years down the line, you wake up in a certain place and wonder how the hell you got there.

A human being has been given an intellect to make choices, and we know there are other food sources that do not require the killing of a creature that would protest being killed.

There were a lot of choices to make and I always picked artist. I never once picked doctor, lawyer, firemen or something like that. It was always artist.