In my household there is an insane amount of laughter and celebration.

Obviously, it wasn't meant for me to die of cancer at 40. Every day my life surprises me, just like my cancer diagnosis surprised me. But you roll with it. That's our job as humans.

The common misconception is that as an actress you have to learn what you're doing. No, you just have to make the audience think you've learned it.

I'm an old-school, embarrassing Joni Mitchell fan. Her music made a hook in my soul and hasn't let go for all these years. I even sing her songs as lullabies to my kids.

I don't have examples in my life of people who are all good or bad; I have deeply loved many people who are both, and I relate to those kinds of people on a far greater level.

But I've always been hard to cast, I've never been an ingenue, I've never been the romantic lead. I'm an actor; give me the script and I do what I do and hope it's good.

I was a young kid from Long Island who wanted to do something large with her life, so I can relate to that.

I've never been all that interested or aware of what people are thinking about me or saying about me. I think that has kept me safest and sanest.

One of the ways I think I gain fodder for characters is by watching people.

I sort of love reading the scripts and going, 'Oh wow, what a great idea. I never would have thought of that.

All I ever wanted to do was act. And pay my bills

If it wasn't for faith there would be no living in this world we couldn't even eat hash with any safety.

I love art, I collect mostly modern art.

I was not a beater of children and as a consequence I've always been, I think, very agreeable and co-operative.

Unlike the older, more humanly shaped arts, which begin with a seed and accumulate their form organically, photography clips its substance out of an actual continuum.

Dogs don’t bark at cars that are parked!

It is the only point of getting up every morning: to paint, to make something good, to make something even better than before, not to give up, to compete, to be ambitious.

Here's the thing, I've been cooking more and more and I'm pretty good, the problem is I can only go out to restaurants that cook better than I do, therefore, it's expensive.

It's an odd feeling, knowing someone is trying to kill you. On the front line, you learn quickly that if you're in the path of a bullet, you will get hit.

The kind of sermon which is preached in most colored churches is not today attractive to even fairly intelligent men.