I take the responsibility of choosing seriously because it becomes an indelible part of your body of work. Something has to sing to me.

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.

I can pretend to be brave, but I'm not

Don't let other people's opinions distort your reality. Be true to yourself. Be bold in pursuing your dreams. Be unapologetically you!

Success is when you see something, and you say, 'I want to do that, ' and then you do it. It's being happy with what you do and doing what you love every day.

In order to properly understand the big picture, everyone should fear becoming mentally clouded and obsessed with one small section of truth.

One measure of your success will be the degree to which you build up others who work with you. While building up others, you will build up yourself.

I'm inspired by good work. Whether it is a great performance by another actor, a piece of art, or someone doing something altruistic.

We are not afraid of what we think we are afraid of . . . we are afraid of what we think.

If you tax too high, the revenue will yield nothing.

I went on the courts with just a ball and a racket and a hope...and that's all I had.

My family background was heavily slanted toward business and seafaring matters.