It's really the best time to be a woman. And instead it can be an advantage. Think about what you can bring to the table that what you have to offer that makes you unique.

I would rather be hired solely for my talent, not just to fill a quota.

My advice for other female directors: don't think of your gender as a handicap. Don't think about it at all. Just tell the best story you can, and don't stop until you do.

Don’t get hung up on the female thing. The art is not about that.

I joke around sometimes and say that the DP [director of photography] is like a shrink for the director, but there's some truth in there.

If you push too much for somebody that everyone knows is your friend, and that you've worked with before, it can backfire.

I want people to think about what and who they have in their lives and then run home to hug them and tell them how much they love them.

You can't expect everything to happen all at once when it's been such a male-dominated world for so long.

Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own.

I know I am--that simplest bliss The millions of my brothers miss. I know the fortune to be born, Even to the meanest wretch they scorn.

The cooler days have brought a wistful mood upon him. The smell of coalsmoke in the air at night. Old times, dead years. For him such memories are bitter ones.

One's own self is well hidden from one's own self; of all mines of treasure, one's own is the last to be dug up.

My point is: in this whole wide world the only person you can depend on is you.

We need a new approach to national security - a bold, progressive internationalism that stands in stark contrast to the too often belligerent and myopic unilateralism of the Bush Administration.

If the majority doesn't laugh at you, beware that you must be saying something wrong. When the majority thinks you are a fool, only then is there some possibility of you being a wise man.

The best feeling in the world is when your child comes up to you and lays their head in your lap, for no other reason but just because. I can't wait to have more.

I think about my mother every day. But usually the thoughts are fleeting - she crosses my mind like a spring cardinal that flies past the edge of your eye: startling, luminous, lovely... gone.

If we're talking about being skinny or losing weight, I don't have that problem; it's genetics.