I've triumphed over addiction.

I've overcome neglect and deprivation, abandonment and abuse.

I never dreamed that shooting a film would be so hard. There was less regulation then of child actors' hours. Even the concept of acting confused me.

I was punished for blowing the whistle on my father's lifestyle.

The more love I craved, the more distant and abusive he grew. The role I longed to play was never written into Ryan's script: daughter.

I've purged myself of bitterness and anger and remained open to love.

When someone was hitting me, or like sexually molesting me, it just seemed normal to continue to do that to myself.

Things with my dad were pretty good until I won an Academy Award. He was really loving to me until I got more attention than he did. Then he hated me.

I've overcome physical and mental brutality - and fought back.

Griffin, my brother, 11 months younger, was sometimes the victim of my father's fury - once Ryan famously knocked out his teeth.

Things get so sloppy when you're under the influence.

Art is a space in which freedom tests its wings.

The first gang members who joined the military were known as the Hounds, a group of former New York gang members.

It is not the words or the actions you should trust, rather the pattern.

The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting.

It is not our abilities that show what we truly are. It is our choices.

No city embraced privatization more eagerly than Chicago, where I live.

It's been one of the greatest challenges that ever came along in my life; it was one of the more difficult things to do.

Too clear, too clean. The problem was precision, perfection.

A cigarette in the hands of a Hollywood star onscreen is a gun aimed at a 12- or 14-year-old.

Ask before offering advice or reassurance.