I do believe there's good in all of us, even if it's layered over so thickly.

Cannes is a very strange place. I tried to show up as best I could and to try not to be cynical.

If someone puts up $100 million on a movie, they're gonna be concerned about whether they'll get it back. So they're not gonna make a movie about three girls, you know?

When it's working, what acting is really about is getting into the essence of a moment in a creative, joyous way - through whatever frees you up.

I do believe there's good in all of us, even if it's layered over so thickly.

It's been very important for me to follow my gut or my heart, or whichever organ you want to go by.

I tried to do the commercial thing. But I don't want to keep shoving Twinkies down everyone's throat. People are hungry for something of more substance.

The weird thing about this business - and I'm sure this operates in many other things, but it's very present and acute in this business - is that a lot of people don't realize that they have power. Particularly actors.

I see my job as an actor to be as good a channel as I can be. Acting is a gift, and I have respect for it.

As a woman, a lot of stories haven't been told and we've got a lot of catching up to do.

I felt that the biological clock was some myth to keep me from doing what I wanted to do. And so I rebelled against it in the '90s. I thought it was a backlasher, some sort of faulty data. But it's real. I'm glad I woke up before my body was just like 'uh-uh.'

I guess the characters I play may be at the more destructive edge of the spectrum, more damaged or whatever, but I find a lot of female roles uninteresting.

I like to play smart, three-dimensional women. I also like to play roles where the women are a little crazy. I just have a feel for crazy people.

I love Central Park. I spend a lot of time in there. I try and get in there whenever I can.

It's tricky to say 'never,' but I will never have plastic surgery.

There's been a slow death in a way. On the positive side, there are films getting into the Academy Awards that wouldn't have, but on the negative side, financiers are now dominant and making all the decisions. I can't count the ways a director's vision is compromised.

To do work that's not going to be fulfilling doesn't make sense.

Two things I'm trying to work on are openness and flexibility.

We need art. We've been telling stories since the beginning. As human beings, we need it for our survival.

You can rest a lot in an hour or have a whole day and not do it properly. One way I get a quality recharge is to connect with nature. To experience something that's bigger than me.

Its been very important for me to follow my gut or my heart or whichever organ you want to go by.

It's true that 'Lords of the Sith' has a lesbian character. Her orientation is a characteristic in the same way as is her brunette hair. It just fit with my conception of her.

The father figure doesn't impress me. I have a very friendly relationship with my father, but that wasn't always the case. My mother had custody, and I only saw him every other weekend. I never knew him well enough for him to inspire me.

Through an arbitrary problem, I had arrived at a tenet of good writing: brevity wins.

I didn't like filtering the story through me, saying, 'Reader, you'll be safe with me. While it gets a little dangerous, it'll be okay because, after all, you're with me, because I'm a warm convivial voice. But let's be entertained by this horrible stuff.' I didn't like that.

The Sabbath is the link between the paradise which has passed away and the paradise which is yet to come.

The Bible is still loved by millions, read by millions, and studied by millions.

On a low-budget film, you don't have all the luxuries.

I'm interested in finding whether or not there is a really massive, what we like to call 'super massive' black hole at the center of our galaxy. And the reason this is interesting is that it gives us an opportunity to prove whether or not these exotic objects really exist.

As a writer, you should care about reluctant readers. You want these kids to feel like books are amazing and cool and that they're an escape.

When I was working with David Cassidy at the Rio, I made an album of updated versions of some 1970s disco tunes. I had a blast.

Engineering is the conscious application of science to the problems of economic production.

You can't underestimate how traumatic divorce is for the children.

I've got a 27-inch waist. Before, I was stupid smaller. Finding clothes in the South was impossible.

You can't afford for there to be gaps in your pool of knowledge when it comes to a character; otherwise, what ends up onscreen is generalized and unspecific.

Once the film is done, then I like to watch myself. I know some actors say that they get very self-conscious watching themselves on screen especially if they have to cry in the scenes, they don't like the way their face contorts, but I have no such issues.

All your acts affect all the people, people that you don't even know. So we have to live with responsibility. We have to live knowing that we're not the only ones here and you're affecting somebody else always.

Maybe it's my 15 minutes of fame, maybe it's longer.

So much of life is just talk. At the end of the day, you're just serving the higher thing.

L.A. is so much about ratings and box office; that defines everything. And here, of course it's important, but it's not part of the culture - there's too much else going on in New York. They're not going to let one industry monopolize your attention, you know? You're likely to have best friends who are architects or newspaper reporters.

I couldn't get session work because most musicians hated my style.

My friends tease me about the fact that if someone seems bad or shady or like they have a secret, I find them incredibly interesting.

You feel this pressure that people will take you more seriously if you play guitar, but I've decided I'm a singer and that's enough.

As long as we can get redress in the courts, as long as the laws shall be honestly administered, as long as honesty and intelligence sit upon the bench, as long as intelligence sits in the chairs of jurors, this country will stand, the law will be enforced, and the law will be respected.

We - we need strength, we need energy, we need quickness and we need brain in this country to turn it around.