Winning is everything in Hollywood.

Sometimes I feel as if four thousand years of silencing women, of the fear of women who were burned in oil or eviscerated in front of their daughters, is imprinted deep within me and has altered my DNA.

Thankfully, it became clear to me that when I compete, I lose my connection to the passion I have for my work.

You don't stay married for thirty-nine years because of sex or even because of love, but because your partner is a real friend to you, because they respect and regard you.

I talk to women's groups all over the country and see women struggling with this. The fear of not being accepted, of being different, of not having a man, all make it hard for a woman to do what she really believes is right for her.

I think it's because most of us talk one way and live another. There are a few people who truly, truly walk the talk.

Most of us are not real eager to grow, myself included. We try to be happy by staying in the status quo. But if we're not willing to be honest with ourselves about what we feel, we don't evolve.

When my children were born, I didn't have them baptized because I felt baptism was about erasing Original Sin - something the Church said children got from their mother - and I absolutely refused to believe women carry Original Sin.

God is not something I think about but something I experience as an energy, a Presence. I do find it easier to pray to a female Presence or an androgynous Presence.

My husband is a fall-away Catholic, but with a vengeance. He's actually more of a feminist than I am.

I sometimes truly despair at ever being meaningfully altered and affected by the things I claim are so important to me.

I think we're socialized out of being women, and then we have to find our way back to it. That's hard to do.

Stories about the ongoing dramas in our lives as we age are not being told because women find it difficult to be honest about what's going on - about, for example, our heightened sexuality as we age or about living in a society that only values youth.

Winning is everything in Hollywood.

I think we have to be careful about what we label as a prerequisite for spirituality. I don't think you have to know a lot to have a spiritual life, but knowing gives life richness.

I feel it most in my work, because there aren't roles about women who are spiritually evolving. That anyone would even write something like that, something that's worth doing, would be a miracle!

When I was a kid, I'd kneel down at the side of my bed every night before I went to sleep, and my mother and I would say a Greek prayer to the Virgin Mary.

The rest of us are still trying to find ways to live in the world with spirit-ual values. Myself included. We've learned certain skills, we've learned to prevail somewhat, but we've not made it over the mountain.

So I constantly play women who are damaged and out of touch, who are seeking without knowing, or knowing without the skills to transform their lives. But then, that's really the fate of many women today.

Follow your heart, your instincts. People might try to dissuade you from your passion, but no one can live your life but you.

We all respect sincerity in our friends and acquaintances, but Hollywood is willing to pay for it.

I was lucky enough to occasionally break out of that racist situation that prevails in the Hollywood film production community. But it was racist then and it will always be that way. It will never be otherwise.

Awards were made in Hollywood, in whatever the time it was created. They're to promote each other's movies. You give me an award, I give you an award and people will believe that we are great movies and they'll go to see them. It's still the same.

I've always thought John Travolta is one of the greatest movie stars Hollywood has ever produced.

It could be my downfall, but I don't think it is - Hollywood is run on perception, and if you stray off the path of what you want to do with your career, it's suicide.

The best thing I can think of would be to create a union between something as beautiful and powerful and wonderful as Hollywood films and a criticism of the status quo. That's my dream, to make such a German film.

Growing up in Hollywood it seemed like every kid was the child of some star. We had no idea that other people would think we were special, because there was no other lifestyle to compare it to.

I remember having to take detours around the Hollywood sign to avoid having to see this grotesque poster of myself on Sunset Boulevard.

Hollywood is kind of a bad world.

It's so crazy in Hollywood.

I don't think I ever understood Hollywood.

I came across awful characters when I got some kind of status and came to Hollywood. Then you have directors trying to sleep with you, assuming that you will do things because of the way you dress.

Hollywood is sexist and age-ist, and that covers all the bases, I guess.

A few nights ago I went to a Hollywood screening of a small independent film made by Sally Kirkland, an old friend of mine who also did terrific job acting in it. There were other actors in it and they were all terrific.

Hollywood today is all about being consistent. All thinking in mainstream film business takes place in one box.

Everyone is treating it like a Hollywood story. In Madison, it's a neighborhood story.

Hollywood is what you make it; you have to choose company with care because you become what they are.

Hollywood is a world all its own.

Silence is the sure sign that you're on your way out in Hollywood.

What is the thing that Hollywood demands most? Sincerity. No place in the world will pay such a high price for this admirable trait.

If you can believe it, Hollywood wanted to change my birthdate. I was born after Valentine's Day, so they wanted to change it to February 14. A Latin lover should be born on Valentine's Day. I said no.

In Hollywood if you are not working, you are a leper. True, you are probably living in the most expensive leper colony in the world.

There are plenty of lesbians in Hollywood, but they're not out. And that's their choice, but I can't do that, it's too important to me.

After 13 years of life on the half shell in Hollywood, I have made a trip where I wasn't a tourist.

What's really exciting for me is communicating to other people and not just going somewhere to make a movie. That's Hollywood to me and it would mean nothing.

No one has a closest friend in Hollywood.

I had been offered a Hollywood contract before my 18th birthday. It gave me the spark I needed.

Acting coaches in Hollywood were always telling me to use my hands and body more. But that was never me. I just breathe and sometimes it doesn't look as if I'm doing that.

Hollywood is a place where a man can get stabbed in the back while climbing a ladder.