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

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.

My first job, which I had to take when not more than fifteen, was assistant to a fruit peddler. It seemed all right to me until a little girl told me snootily, 'We never deal with peddler!' Thereupon I resigned, ashamed of what I was doing.

I was in a play with Julia Roberts and Paul Newman and Tony Randall.

You can't be a progressive and be opposed to pension reform.

Showing leadership doesn't mean every employee will run the organization; that would lead to chaos. Businesses do need someone to set the vision and then lead the team to it.

Talking isn't doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.

I'm a very caring person.

I like to move forward and notice things along the roadside that indicate where I should go.

In the Caribbean islands, especially in Jamaica, have I found a country similar to South Africa plus the racial freedom I had sought so long.

I really do like to work. I will work again. But on my terms.

I can and I will do this.

I see myself as British, and I want to be celebrated by Britain.

I've always thought Anne-Marie Slaughter would make a fantastic United States Senator or something. She's a real intellectual, but she's got enormous communicative skills and she's got government experience. The thing that drives me slightly crazy is the way we think about intellectuals as wooly, hopeless, arrogant, self-deceived, incapable.

While housing discrimination and segregation in 2005 still affect millions of people, that's not the way it has to be. Some things can change and should.

Gentlemen never wear brown in London.

A quiet personality sure isn't what you need to attract attention.

I moved in fourth grade in the middle of the school year, and I was the new kid in school.

I've found the world's most versatile word - 'cheeky.' The amount of ways you guys can use the word 'cheeky' is quite impressive.

No one cares about it more than you. Give it the attention it needs.

Soft nature of a person does not mean weakness. Remember, nothing is softer than water, but its force can break the strongest of rocks.

Ive never known anyone yet who doesnt suffer a certain restlessness when autumn rolls around... Were all eight years old again and anything is possible.

If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy rejoice for your soul is alive.

I have a terrific marriage, but unlike a lot of relationships where they ebb and flow, no matter what happens you fall deeper and deeper in love every day. It's kind of the best thing that can happen to you. It's thrilling.

And one thing about Mick Jagger is he keeps his eye very closely on not only where the dollars go but where the pennies go.

When you've been touched by sadness and grief, it makes you vulnerable. And because I am vulnerable, I try to be positive. And when I say 'try,' I really do mean try, because it's an effort.