I was very driven, very focused, very ambitious. I mean, when I look back on myself in my 20s, part of me just cringes.

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

A finished person is a boring person.

There is a little boy inside the man who is my brother... Oh, how I hated that little boy. And how I love him too.

After all those years as a woman hearing 'not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not this enough, not that enough,' almost overnight I woke up one morning and thought, 'I'm enough.'

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.

There is a lot of talk now about metal detectors and gun control. Both are good things. But they are no more a solution than forks and spoons are a solution to world hunger.

Look back, to slavery, to suffrage, to integration and one thing is clear. Fashions in bigotry come and go. The right thing lasts.

You are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life ... Your entire life ... Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.

America is a country that seems forever to be toddler or teenager, at those two stages of human development characterized by conflict between autonomy and security.

Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.

Love and Compassion – these are the greatest education a person can ever have.

Never underestimate the distance that one simple act of kindness can carry you.

Who in their infinite wisdom decreed that Little League uniforms be white? Certainly not a mother.

I loved teaching. And I always used to say that acting was just something I did purely on my own terms, and that if I had to make a living from it there would be too much pressure.

Since my accident I am a little more mindful of the suffering of other people.

Ignorance is the greatest source of happiness.

A very friendly boom, like a pair of gleeful handclaps.

My childhood was endless - from eight to 18 felt like hundreds of years.

introductions are hard to come by when your natural state is shyness