I've overcome physical and mental brutality - and fought back.

My children forgave me at a time when I could barely forgive myself.

Certain struggles never end.

When someone was hitting me, or like sexually molesting me, it just seemed normal to continue to do that to myself.

Things get so sloppy when you're under the influence.

I think all of us feel like we're a bit on show, all the time.

As Peter Bogdanovich would say of Paper Moon: Ryan's wonderful in it, and he sat there and watched the kid steal the picture.

I've purged myself of bitterness and anger and remained open to love.

I've stood my ground in life, alone, even against overwhelming forces with the might and money to crush me.

I've overcome neglect and deprivation, abandonment and abuse.

Griffin, my brother, 11 months younger, was sometimes the victim of my father's fury - once Ryan famously knocked out his teeth.

Ryan is my bridge to the past, to memories that lose some of their sting when he recounts them.

Ryan finally came to my rescue. He'd thought working together in Paper Moon would help us bond.

I was punished for blowing the whistle on my father's lifestyle.

I felt privileged to be a facet of such a jewel in the crown of American cinema.

Paper Moon didn't bring me love.

I've triumphed over addiction.

I've overcome physical and mental brutality - and fought back.

I never dreamed that shooting a film would be so hard. There was less regulation then of child actors' hours. Even the concept of acting confused me.

The more love I craved, the more distant and abusive he grew. The role I longed to play was never written into Ryan's script: daughter.

I do take responsibility for it. I admit to having a problem. I have been to numerous treatment centers.

I have a temper, but I wouldn't call me abusive.

Things with my dad were pretty good until I won an Academy Award. He was really loving to me until I got more attention than he did. Then he hated me.

I remained Ryan's companion on the Hollywood party circuit, growing inured to sex and drugs before I was in my teens.

I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house we had an enormous feast and then I killed them and took their land.

I enjoy research; in fact research is so engaging that it would be easy to go on for years, and never write the novel at all.

Good people get cheated just as good horses get ridden.

In a relationship, when does the art of compromise become compromising?

Obama is the New Generation and the hot light of a dawn that goes way beyond clever talk of morning in America.

The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.

What there is no dispute about is whether or not China is a currency manipulator. They are a currency manipulator. They actively intervene every single day to keep the value of their currency less than it would be against the dollar than if it floated freely. We think. Even China barely disputes that.

Plan to the extent that feels right to you at a particular time in your life, but always be open to serendipity.

The scariest part to any story is the sliver of truth you hide in the horror. Sometimes its not about the axe wielding murder, but the fact that he's lurking somewhere in your basement. Sure, you keep telling yourself that you'll replace the burnt out light every week.

Tolerance is the positive and cordial effort to understand another's beliefs, practices, and habits without necessarily sharing or accepting them.

Every morning, I wake up and make the most nutrient-dense green smoothie I can.

I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.

The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth.

Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn't have to mean public confessions.

She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts.

I believe if something needs to be said people should say it. Blunt doesnt stab as deep as being cut by a secret.

The majority of the high schools and the public schools in N.Y.C. don't even have band programs. Hip-hop in a lot of ways is an outgrowth of a lack of instruments and a desire to play music, so we can't really fault the kids for that.

To have a loving relationship with a sister is not simply to have a buddy or a confidante it is to have a soul mate for life.

In all the debate about Afghanistan, we don't hear much about our obligation to the wretched lives of Afghan women. They are being treated as collateral damage as the big boys discuss geopolitical goals.

The Navy, from early on, knew this was important. They could have dumped it in the ocean. We don't know who decided this, but someone said let's keep it and preserve it.

I think striking the right tone for your story is, if you like, the alchemical work of writing.

We tend to become like those whom we admire.

If we cannot end our differences at least we can make the world safe for diversity.

I've always been in love with the movies. They're the dreams of the 20th Century.