I had never even thought I'd be an actress - I was supposed to be a lawyer. But the motivation is the same: when you act, you defend a role; you have to be convincing. It's the same career.

I adore people who ask questions and who cause others to share in their search.

On the surface I look fragile and insecure; you have to know me very well.

I try to live the moment and not obey laws, rules, conventions, or norms; to react to a sensation, a feeling, or an emotion. You can't program emotion.

It's terrifying, that unconditional love you have for a child. I still wonder if she really came from me, from my womb. It's a miracle. I don't understand it. I live it very intensely.

Actors should be timeless and impersonal.

To what purpose is it to be artificially happy on the surface?

Knowing what I know of love, I hang back because I don't like to lie to myself.

You have to get it in your brain that you don't belong to yourself as an actor, but that you belong to the director who creates the character.

[He was aware] of the value of the word of praise dropped at exactly the right moment

A dog could see your heart in your eyes, Budress told him, and dogs were drawn to our hearts.

Jebediah Woodley is one of those guys that when I'm sitting in my rocking chair one day, thinking back, I'll remember that guy. He was a fun guy to play.

The stripped and shapely Maple grieves The ghosts of her Departed leaves. The ground is hard, As hard as stone. The year is old, The birds are flown.

I didn't necessarily set out to think of a show to make fun of reality shows.

Fearing servility, people become servile.

On a standard space shuttle crew, two of the astronauts have a test pilot background - the commander and the pilot.

The United States has been called the melting pot of the world. But it seems to me that the colored man either missed getting into the pot or he got melted down.

They urged me to take up winter quarters at the forks of the Platt, stating that if I attempted to advance further until spring, I would endanger the lives of my whole party.

Books are something social - a writer speaking to a reader - so I think making the reading of a book the center of a social event, the meeting of a book club, is a brilliant idea.