The high-grossing films are not all that interesting to me, I have to say. It's not stuff I would want to be in. Yes, you would want the big paycheck, but that's never really been my concern.

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

You have a responsibility to act for others when you're the only person in a position to do so. It's how you handle it that separates the great from the mediocre.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. I think I would have more fun chopping thistles with a butter knife.

Joy does not come from what you do, it flows into what you do and thus into this world from deep within you.

Killing time is not an easy job.

Sincerity is a great but rare virtue, and we pardon to it much complaining, and the betrayal of many weaknesses.

Don't buy into the notion that mistakes can somehow be avoided. They can't be.

On the Northern Ireland question, for instance, the British and Irish governments prohibit media contact with members of the IRA, but we have always gone ahead, believing in the right to information.

There's no point feeling angry at a drunk.

You get so weak from eating pears that you fall down, and then they come and take you away on a stretcher.

No one in college football or the SEC can tackle me by themselves.