I'll talk to myself out loud a lot.

I take the responsibility of choosing seriously because it becomes an indelible part of your body of work. Something has to sing to me.

When I was 5, my mother threw a party, and a friend and I wrote and performed a play called The Dutch Doll.

There are all kinds of other things I could do, things I would probably like, but only acting would give me emotional fulfillment.

I was offered one of the roles in a big project that shall remain nameless. I thought the whole thing encouraged violent sex crimes toward women. It made horrible, ghastly rape violence seem sexy. I just didn't want to sign my name to it.

My major in college was Chinese Studies. It was very intentional.

I had started off, before I ever got an acting job, working at Robert De Niro's Tribeca Productions as a reader. I was always interested in that side of the camera.

Acting is doing, because everything you say or do is some kind of an action, some kind of a verb. You're always connected to the other person through some kind of action.

The Oscars have become such a big deal these days that it's just used as adjective.

I assume that if people get to know me, they'll like me. If they don't, it's not my problem.

Once you've found something you know how to do, it makes you feel you don't have to be intimidated by someone.

It's the relationships between people that are more important than the sort of far away fantasies of what the good life is, the world of supermodels and Bud ads.

The name game is frustrating. Agents will say, They love you, but they're going to offer it to Julia Roberts first.

I had been looking for a New York apartment, but I said, Why not give LA a go?

We all struggle with our failure to communicate and our failure to reach beyond fear to love people.

I have learned to pare down what I do and still be effective and strong in a role.

I could have seen myself going into academia, but I don't love it; I just like it.

I hope that doing truthful portrayals of people in a variety of circumstances gives people a kind of subterranean link to those characters.

My father taught me how to substitute realities.

Being is like pretending.

I'll talk to myself out loud a lot.

I had a Christian upbringing - it was all about sin and guilt. I was very happy just kissing people. I was like the make-out queen - not even second base.

I wanted to do something far from my intellectual and physical home, so I went to live in Beijing for eight months and took Mandarin Chinese.

I want my life to effect the balance to the positive.

Sometimes I feel limited by people's perceptions of what I can and cannot do, or what I do or don't look like.

I have a hard time getting motivated to do something that seems like a career move. I've gotten into vague trouble with my agents for turning down work that I thought was exploitative.

I hate it when people use sex as a weapon against the people who are engaging in it. It's so hypocritical.

There was something about being in front of audiences when I was in elementary school plays that gave me a thrill. It was like the rush you get from a roller coaster drop.

Now that I've got some films under my belt, I have the courage of my convictions regarding acting. It gives me a leg to stand on.

I try to become more humble and more myself with every year. There was a while when I got famous where I was so confused and my head was spinning.

I'm doing things that are more artistic again, more close to the material that I love. I don't disparage those things that I did. They're just not as much reflective of who I am.

I always feel I can play a role - just give me the time to do the preparation and I'll be it.

Acting is what happens on the way.

I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.

I mean the only thing that is hopefully good about us is after the arguments we can actually still face each other the next day or the day after and talk about something else and sort of get over it.

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.

But I found a lot of artists at the Cedar Bar were difficult for me to talk to.

I didn't have a boyfriend until I was 17. There were boys at school that I would find out later had a crush on me but I was too shy to talk to them.

As I say, there was this movement to try to bring philosophers and mathematicians together into an organization where they would talk to each other. An organization wasn't effective unless you had a journal. That's about all I know.

And they talk about their bona fide doctors. They have a list of doctors that signed affidavits from looking at a picture of Terry. That's where they get their information from, by looking at a picture.

Of every ten persons who talk about you, nine will say something bad, and the tenth will say something good in a bad way.

There is a neurologist, a woman over at Harvard who wanted me to come talk to them, and in France I have a lot of readers in the sciences. I can't tell you why.

Actually the copies of characters is something I don't particularly like to talk about in articles but just for your information, most characters there's only one.

I appreciate life, talk a lot, love to laugh, and am very optimistic.

Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsense of those that think they talk sense.

When I talk to people in need, they tell me they want to hope; they are eager for opportunity; they are ready for better days. And I can tell you that every time their hopes are disappointed, all nations lose.

Americans are big boys. You can talk them into almost anything. Just sit with them for half an hour over a bottle of whiskey and be a nice guy.

The rule is not to talk about money with people who have much more or much less than you.

I just have some restaurants to just go and eat there. Do mean places to watch people? I like to go shopping look for guitars and stuff with my friends. Look at Meyer, great old instruments, talk about pedals and stuff.