Sometimes the odds are against you-the director doesn't know what the hell he's doing, or something falls apart in the production, or you're working with an actor who's just unbearable.

I never felt like I belonged in Minnesota when I was growing up there. That's why I was out the door as soon as I turned 18.

The natural state of motherhood is unselfishness. When you become a mother, you are no longer the center of your own universe. You relinquish that position to your children.

When you learn not to want things so badly, life comes to you.

I regret those times when I've chosen the dark side. I've wasted enough time not being happy.

Moments of pure happiness...come upon you unexpectedly. Don't be too preoccupied to experience them.

Everything is transient. Everything is constantly changing. The only thing we have is now.

One of the things I love about acting is that it reveals a certain something about yourself, but it doesn't reveal your own personal story.

Don't be absent from your own life.

I've never been a sunny personality. I've never been outgoing. I'm a solitary person.

Acceptance and tolerance and forgiveness, those are life-altering lessons.

Somewhere along the road many of us have picked up the belief that to change we must suffer. Some things are earned with work. But work is not suffering. Work is just work.

I would have kept you safe, ' he said.I closed my eyes, forcing the tears down my cheek to break against the dam of his fingers. 'I know.

I have always loved locomotives passionately. For me they are living creatures and I love them as others love women or horses.

Three life lessons: 1.No one will see you. 2.No one will say anything. 3.No one will save you.

Earlier today I shot my old partner, a friend of mine, because he tried to stop me from doing what I have to do. Don't think for a second that I won't do that to you.

We cannot evangelize until we have been evangelized. This happens most powerfully through solitary prayer.

It's great to do small plays in the theatre and then go off with Blur and play in front of thousands of people.

I love street, adore street. Life is about mixing things and to be divine in the streets. Voila!

The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.

The problem of the Middle East is poverty more than politics.