And while I might not always agree with the viewpoint I have to portray, because I play a district attorney, as an actress I can always tell myself that my character is trying to take the moral high ground.

I love children and I love men, but I can't commit to either for the rest of my life.

I love receiving fan mail.

And I don't believe that women can successfully have it all. I really don't.

And I think women have come a very, very long way, but they have a long way to go.

I love fast cars... and to go too fast in them.

Coffee and smoking are the last great addictions.

I am a very selfish person.

But Tommy Lee Jones is just smooth. He's just the real deal. I'm captivated by him because there's so little of that in Hollywood, and he just embodies it.

Have I seen The Commitments? I was obsessed with that movie. I just watched it again about two weeks ago.

I've dated men my age, younger than me and older. The only difference is the young ones are quicker at taking out the garbage.

I've had Irish skin from the time I was a young girl.

I had never watched a law show prior to being cast on The Practice.

I'm afraid of the dark, so I have a lot of night-lights.

That's what the holidays are for - for one person to tell the stories and another to dispute them. Isn't that the Irish way?

I remember doing the sex scene in Red Rock West. I had to kiss Nic Cage and then look like I was going down on him. And he couldn't do anything - he just had to lie there.

To put me through school my morn had to work, so I was a latchkey kid.

Being Irish was a big thing for me, particularly growing up in Chicago.

You can get through your whole day only around people who will tell you that you're wonderful. But pretty soon they're going to have to be lying about that.

I love talking about myself.

I don't have a problem with my body. I don't diet, and I'm not hiding anything. I'm not going to be the subject of a movie of the week 10 years from now.

I had so many freckles that my mother used to say that they were kisses from the angels. I still have them.

Oh, I don't talk about Jack and me. Some things are too good to share.

Sometimes when you're just thrown into something, you are more ready for it than when you have time to think it over and get nervous about it.

I still sweat bullets if I go on The Tonight Show, but I tell myself, You can either have fun tonight or you can be shy and miserable. You ask my friends or anyone I work with now - nobody would say I was shy.

But I know somebody who has a bedside urinal. How do I compete with that?

As soon as you get over caring what people think, you can have a nice time.

I spent every day just praying that I didn't look like a big dork on camera.

Everybody wants to solve everybody's problems.

I know that I'm getting the real deal with my mom. I know that she's telling it like it is. She's proud of me when I've earned it and she's disappointed in me when I've earn that. She's really my spectrum on where I am as a person.

You know, the bigger you get and the more success you have, the more people you can fill your house with to tell you how great you are. You can do that.

I think the institution of marriage is a great idea, but for me it's just an idea.

She comes from the Midwest. She had me at a very young age and raised me on her own. She's a very hard worker.

Men love it. They have a sense of humor, whereas a lot of women are threatened or just don't get it.

I am very fortunate to have a career. I always have to act. I don't know if I'll have a career to support it for the rest of my life, but I know I'll always act.

It is a great compliment to go out and be recognized. Although, because I basically go home and go to work, there isn't much opportunity for that kind of thing to happen.

I had such a great mom and I know that I'd never be that mom. I wouldn't want to bring a child into this world unless I could be.

And while I might not always agree with the viewpoint I have to portray, because I play a district attorney, as an actress I can always tell myself that my character is trying to take the moral high ground.

As soon as you get over caring what people think you can have a nice time

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

I do like to embed a fictional character firmly in an occupation.

But even with a character like Cary who is relatively outlandish, at the end of the movie he's in a place where I wouldn't have expected him to be - taking on the responsibility of a woman who is pregnant and who used to be his best friend's wife.

Always, your work is the same: You have to tell a story, you have to make a character. It doesn't matter if there are thousands of dollars, millions behind it, or if there is nothing.

Each of us is meant to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and do what no other can exactly do.

I liked Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, and that is the kind of character that I would like to have played. That would have been more in tune with who I really was.

It's the difficulty we had with Mr. Bean, actually, when it went from TV to film. You certainly discover that you need to explain more about a character.

In a lot of ways, the make-up was the character.

The more we study the Indian's character the more we appreciate the marked distinction between the civilized being and the real savage.

So many people have said that to me, that what they really like about Alex is what she brings out in Marissa, and what this situation brings out in her, a hint of happiness and another side to her character.