The world gets very small after a while, if you stick around long enough.

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

I do not mind sleepless night to be involved in reading.

I kind of want to get the music back on a road it hasn't been on for a while. I want to promote the arts as part of the American diet.

Legends die hard. They survive as truth rarely does.

It is reasonable to hope that in the not too distant future we shall be competent to understand so simple a thing as a star.

You never fully get over [losing a presidential campaign]. But I've had a good life. I've enjoyed myself 90 percent of the time.

That's the way it goes with the whole human thing - nobody wants to take a risk. But to be entertaining is not risky, everybody likes to be entertained.

Every time I make a record, it's a gem with different facets, and every time I like to explore a different side. The core is the same, it never changes, but I try to create a different shape.

The belief that one's own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous of all delusions.

The definition of indecent – when it’s in long, and it’s in hard, and it’s in deep – it’s in decent.

Human folly does not impede the turning of the stars.