I really understand where Alice is coming from - I've been in exactly the same place coming from a small town and knowing that I need to do other things, that I have to leave.

I really understand where Alice is coming from - I've been in exactly the same place coming from a small town and knowing that I need to do other things, that I have to leave.

Bad directors will tell you they absolutely know how to do it, and how it has to happen; there's this insecurity that leads them to feeling like they have to control everything.

I've always tried to be conscious of how I represent women in my work. They don't have to be good or strong women, but they have to be complex.

The landscape you grow up in speaks to you in a way that nowhere else does.

Sex, sexual dynamics and how we define our sexuality, is one of the major deals in everyone's life.

I think it's damaging to know too much about a person, about an actor.

I still don't look like what I think I look like.

As an actor, you usually live your life with faith.

In general, costumes are the first thing in life that let other people know who we are. They indicate who the person is without saying anything.

I think a lot of actors are overly concerned about being well liked in the parts they play.

I'm probably an actor that tends to, instead of putting things on, think about it more in terms of taking away what's not in the character, until I'm left with what is. If that makes sense. That's probably a particularly American way of working, but maybe not. The end of any movie is a readjustment.

To require a citizen to sign a loyalty oath is to destroy some of the loyalty he could otherwise claim since any subsequent loyal behavior may then be attributed to the oath.

I am mentally strong, but physically I'm constantly unwell. I internalise a lot of things, and if something stresses me or disturbs me, I don't talk about it and make myself sick with it.

I am aware it's easy and may be fashionable to pose with a slum child, and the irony of getting the media along means that it can come across as disingenuous. But you take these things on board, and you hope you mean it whenever you get stuck into something.

I had no desire to be a stand-up comic until I decided to do it.

My name had gone stale, and no matter how progressive I got, it was my time to die.

I got a New York designer to build my dream store here, which is a little bit of Florence in New York. It's like the Duomo on Madison. I got inspired by Santa Maria Novella and all the Renaissance architecture.

I think people who grow up in one particular environment, like the Alabama-Auburn game, they don't ever get the same appreciation for the Ohio State-Michigan game or the Michigan State-Notre Dame game or the Michigan-Michigan State game, the Browns and the Steelers.

It is lovely when I forget all birthdays including my own to find that somebody remembers me.

It's an article of faith that the novels I've loved will live inside me forever.

Steve Jobs' ability to focus in on a few things that count, get people who get user interface right, and market things as revolutionary are amazing things.

Truly, I am a woman of the last minute. When I was pregnant, I organised three different hospitals because I couldn't decide where I wanted to have my baby: London, Rome or Paris. In the end, I decided to go to Rome, arrived on the Monday and gave birth on the Saturday.

When he was running, my thinking was, 'I can't believe my governor is running for president.' By the end of Clinton's first year in office, I was like, 'Wow, I must not be a Democrat.'

We not only romanticize the future; we have also made it into a growth industry, a parlor game and a disaster movie all at the same time.

It doesn't matter what you feel - ultimately, it's what the audience feels. You can finish a scene and think to yourself, 'Oh, God. I was so deep in that moment,' and find it just didn't play. I don't know if I have very good radar about that or not.

A picture is worth a thousand words. A satellite image is worth a million dollars.

On what high performing companies should be striving to create A great place for great people to do great work.

Pocketknives are kind of drifting out of our cultural consciousness, which I think is a terrible thing.

You need two things to remain very, very present. You need to continue to write well and engage yourself in the issues of the day. And you have to continue to make good, relevant records.

If it doesn't challenge you, it won't change you.

We're definitely a hodgepodge of influences. Mine, most heavily, would be Southern rock - the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd and stuff like that. Hillary is more from the country side - her mom is Linda Davis, a country singer. Dave, he's a big fan of the Eagles and like that.

I never expect to lose. Even when I'm the underdog, I still prepare a victory speech.

An open mind leaves a chance for someone to drop a worthwhile thought in it.

Credit or debit cards, for starters, are nothing short of shoppers' Novocain. Even in the age of digital purchases and virtual money, we still attach a special value to dirty paper with pictures of presidents on it. Handing some of that to a cashier simply hurts more than handing over a little sliver of plastic.

Your own personal health is your own personal choice, all the way down the line.