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

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.

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

I actually washed my window once, and it fell through - it was being held together by the dirt.

It's the pointless things that give your life meaning. Friendship, Compassion, Art, Love. All of them are pointless. But, they're what keeps life from being meaningless.

Speech is our second possession, after the soul-and perhaps we have no other possession in this world.

Immoral is choosing not to act when you hold in your hands the power to create perfection.

For decades, I have supported adoption, and have helped tens of thousands of children worldwide.

Love is an act of faith, not an exchange. Contradictions are what make love grow. Conflicts are what allow love to remain by our side.

We may not get what we want, when we want. But with a bit of perseverance and a lot of patience, we can get what we need.

Maybe she, like me, would have loved the tiny details and inconveniences even more dearly than the wonders, because they are the things that prove you belong.

They called it the Terminal Bar but they had no idea that like twenty years later the place'd be filling up with terminal cases.