I’m not sad about any of my life. It’s so unconventional. It doesn’t look anything like I thought it would.

Obviously, it wasn't meant for me to die of cancer at 40. Every day my life surprises me, just like my cancer diagnosis surprised me. But you roll with it. That's our job as humans.

The common misconception is that as an actress you have to learn what you're doing. No, you just have to make the audience think you've learned it.

I'm an old-school, embarrassing Joni Mitchell fan. Her music made a hook in my soul and hasn't let go for all these years. I even sing her songs as lullabies to my kids.

I don't have examples in my life of people who are all good or bad; I have deeply loved many people who are both, and I relate to those kinds of people on a far greater level.

But I've always been hard to cast, I've never been an ingenue, I've never been the romantic lead. I'm an actor; give me the script and I do what I do and hope it's good.

I was a young kid from Long Island who wanted to do something large with her life, so I can relate to that.

I've never been all that interested or aware of what people are thinking about me or saying about me. I think that has kept me safest and sanest.

One of the ways I think I gain fodder for characters is by watching people.

I sort of love reading the scripts and going, 'Oh wow, what a great idea. I never would have thought of that.

All I ever wanted to do was act. And pay my bills

The bottom line is, insults only hurt when they come from someone I respect.

You're an idiot.""I've never claimed to be otherwise.

TIMETimeAnd how it slips through my fingersWithout putting its ring on them, And I remain simply its lover

read thousands of books and I will power myself with knowledge. Pens and books are the weapons that defeat terrorism.

Literature, at least good literature, is science tempered with the blood of art. Like architecture or music.

All that shimmers on the surface of the world, all that we call interesting, is the fruit of ignorance and inebriation.

The way I understand it, the Russians are sort of a combination of evil and incompetence... sort of like the Post Office with tanks.

I believe that perfection handicaps cinema.

Some of us have the good fortune of some type of natural gift, whether it's playing tennis or painting or writing.

If you have a character that doesn't have anything wrong with him, there's nothing funny about it.