I had a Christian upbringing - it was all about sin and guilt. I was very happy just kissing people. I was like the make-out queen - not even second base.

I wanted to do something far from my intellectual and physical home, so I went to live in Beijing for eight months and took Mandarin Chinese.

We all struggle with our failure to communicate and our failure to reach beyond fear to love people.

I try to become more humble and more myself with every year. There was a while when I got famous where I was so confused and my head was spinning.

I assume that if people get to know me, they'll like me. If they don't, it's not my problem.

My major in college was Chinese Studies. It was very intentional.

I hope that doing truthful portrayals of people in a variety of circumstances gives people a kind of subterranean link to those characters.

I could have seen myself going into academia, but I don't love it; I just like it.

I want my life to effect the balance to the positive.

The Oscars have become such a big deal these days that it's just used as adjective.

When I was 5, my mother threw a party, and a friend and I wrote and performed a play called The Dutch Doll.

When your last breath arrives, Grammar can do nothing.

I'm very organized - and the best thing - when you love your work, you don't mind putting in 15 hour days. It's joyful.

A true champion is one who sweats from exhaustion when no one is watching.

How rude. Many who have gazed upon me have compared the experience to gazing at the radiance of the sun." Jem still had his eyes closed. "If they mean it gives you a headache, they aren't wrong.

It's never too late to try to end a conflict.

You win the Oscar, you get to go into just about anybody's office for a month. I had a lot of meetings.

Patience may be a virtue, but quitting is an art.

Directing was a transformative experience for me, one that I really enjoyed.

I've never set out to write a funny movie or be a funny comedian as a woman. I am a woman. I don't really have a choice in the matter. My goal is just to be funny.

I never approved either the errors of his book, or the trivial truths he so vigorously laid down. I have, however, stoutly taken his side when absurd men have condemned him for these same truths.