I just can't feel lukewarm about a character. I either despise her, admire her, or don't understand her and want to understand her.

I have tender, romantic associations with upstate New York.

Music is what our feelings sound like.

There are women who make things better, there are women who change things, there are women who make things happen, who make a difference. I want to be one of those women.

In the quiet moments, the discoveries are made.

Your soul either feels lifted by something that you read, or it feels squashed by it.

No role is more challenging, rewarding and inspiring than my real-life role as a mom and a wife.

There's no wrong way to experience a film.

Am I ambitious? I used to be afraid of that word but now I think ambition is a good thing.

I think I always try to be accommodating and open and available and proving for my director. I love to give as many takes as they want. I love to give them as many choices as they want.

Doubt is the middle position between knowledge and ignorance. It encompasses cynicism but also genuine questioning.

There’s nothing that makes you more insane than family. Or more happy. Or more exasperated. Or more . . . secure.

A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman.

Poetry is the experience of liberty. The poet risks himself, chances all on the poem's all with each verse he writes.

Here's your opportunity, now you've got to make something of it.

There's never any reason to trust someone. If there's a reason, then it's not trust. -Terence

All genius is simple. It involves close observation and a momentous act of self trust.

Perhaps the most important contribution to science that the Royal Society has made in its three centuries of existence is its early role in publishing Newton's masterful account of his discoveries.

Van Ritzen is one of the funniest humans I've ever met. Read her book, laugh, lather, rinse, repeat.

Well, some people die and then they sell more records, go figure.

Each substance of a grief has twenty shadows.