happiness requires struggle. The positive is the side effect of handling the negative. You can only avoid negative experiences for so long before they come roaring back to life.

Who you are is defined by the values you are willing to struggle for.

What determines your success isn’t “What do you want to enjoy?” The question is, “What pain do you want to sustain?”

People who enjoy the stresses and uncertainty of the starving artist lifestyle are ultimately the ones who live it and make it.

The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences but the quality of your negative experiences. And to get good at dealing with negative experiences is to get good at dealing with life.

99% of your thoughts are useless.

You have the ability to decide what you think. Or, you can choose NOT to think.

“How do I train myself to stop thinking useless thoughts?” Awareness. That’s where it starts. Every time you start drifting off, become aware of it. Just observe your brain. Step outside yourself and just observe the crazy shit you’re thinking about.

Set priorities on Sunday. I outline my weekly priorities and what I want to have accomplished by the following Sunday.

Map out work, play, fit, and push. Work: For each day, I outline my “Top 3,” meaning the three most important things I will have accomplished by the end of the day.

Play: Play enables me to self-express, reflect, and give my ideas space, which shows up positively in my work.

Fit: Movement keeps ideas moving forward so I aim to move my body for at least 30 minutes each day.

Push: Since learning and growth is important to me, I do something that scares me (almost) every day. This may be asking someone whom I deeply respect for an interview or writing about a topic that makes me feel vulnerable.

Batch your days. Batching actions into specific days and creating time for creativity.

CREATE on Monday/Wednesday/Friday: I create holes in my schedule for thinking and creating. On these days, I pay attention to my body and take breaks as needed.

CALLS and MEETINGS on Tuesday/Thursday: When possible, I avoid phone calls and meetings because I find them typically unproductive and often easy to solve via email.

SPONTANEOUS Saturday: With so much structure, I make room for spontaneity. On Saturday, I let go and go where the day takes me. Balancing structure with a day of free-spiritedness makes me feel whole.

INTENTIONAL Sunday: Plan for the week ahead.

I'm a journeyman actor, and I don't ever want to forget that. With romantic-lead dreams.

Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers.

The point is that filmmaking is a collaborative effort it isnt about imposing your vision on other people. Its about the talking you know

I have no problems or issues with screenwriting in general.

I want to live.

So long as there is one pretty girl left on the stage, the professional undertakers may hold up their burial of the theater.

What a privilege it is to be an American!

I knew I'd conquered America when Mike Tyson told me I was one mean lady.

When I lived in China, there were no libraries. My mother bought books for me, and they were mostly the classics. I read 'Peter Pan,' 'The Secret Garden,' the 'Rosemary' books, and Kipling's 'Just So' Stories was one of my favorites. No, I didn't read historical fiction. It didn't exist where I was growing up in China.

I can look back at different times in my life when I felt I could not find my way out of whatever it was. I'm not necessarily talking about marriage, but I wanted to pack it in. I wanted to disappear. A lot of that has to do with being in the public eye.

Omaha, like Rome, is built on seven hills.

I'm not a liberal elite who was educated in the northeast, for example, I'm just a kid from Mississippi.

To acquire money requires valor, to keep money requires prudence, and to spend money well is an art.

It is very possible that I could have ended up on 80 acres of land by myself, and fallen in love at a distance with a gorgeous woman I could never have been with.

To have much learning to be skillful in handicraft well trained in discipline and to be of good speech this is the greatest blessing.

Forget the years, forget distinctions. Leap into the boundless and make it your home.

What I am most grateful for is that neither of my fathers pushed the relationship; they just let things develop and didn't impose anything on me. They were both just there, emanating stability in a very unstable situation.

Once Ptolemy and Plato, yesterday Newton, today Einstein, and tomorrow new faiths, new beliefs, and new dimensions.

I don't have any horror stories of trying to start as a comedian and eating it constantly on stage.

In Donald Trump, you have a candidate who knows the difference between wanting something done and making it happen.

Be unpredictable, be real, be interesting. Tell a good story.

While nobody has identified any gene for religion, there are certainly some candidate genes that may influence human personality and confer a tendency to religious feelings. Some of the genes likely to be involved are those which control levels of different chemicals called neurotransmitters in the brain.

When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade.

I've never been able to plan my life. I just lurch from indecision to indecision.