I think the people who cast films tend to think of me in regard to strong women with integrity and a lot of it has been very good.

I think ties are great and Kathy Bates is an actress whose work I've admired tremendously over many years, and I feel a certain kinship with her, we both came from an extensive theater background.

Acting gave me the opportunity to do outrageous things. It allowed me to be sad, happy, angry and lustful, even if it was just vicariously.

I certainly do get at the end of my rope at times. We all do.

I was always much more shy. All I knew was that I loved to act. But I don't know about the other part of it. I'm not sure I had the chutzpah to go and prove yourself.

I was a very good girl for a long time, that's what really drew me to acting. The stage was the perfect place to be outrageous, to be sad, to be angry, to be all these different things.

It's such a great feeling to make people laugh. I know I've made people cry or want to slit their wrists, but to make people laugh is a very intoxicating, wonderful thing.

I'm hard to pin down. I tend to look different in films.

I don't have a political bone in my body.

Once I got to high school and auditioned for a play and got in, I thought this was really what I was looking for. Once that had got cleared up, from 13 on, that was it.

I think of myself more as a character actor than that ingenue leading lady, who started out something like Michelle Pfeiffer, or Jessica Lange. I'm a bit quirkier than that.

The ability to make yourself do what needs to be done at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner – irrespective of your feelings – marks the true test of self-discipline.

Was there ever any question on how much I could take? You kept feeding me your bullshit hoping I would break.

I'm an art major. You're a political science major. YOU go lay down the law.

Keeping your commitment to your purpose does not depend on other people keeping theirs.

Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily.

Prayer concerns God, whose purposes and plans are conditioned on prayer. His will and His glory are bound up in praying.

One of the things that most people aren't aware of when they think of the Civil War is the number of people and associated animals. (Armies) weren't mechanized. They had to rely on horses and mules.

I think I could go away tomorrow. I've already accomplished something. It's such a selfish business that sometimes I get sick of myself.

The most difficult object in painting is yourself because you're always at issue

I was not raised a Zionist, but a socialist, as were most Jews before the Holocaust.