When I was making films [early in my career] there were very, very few female directors, and there were certainly no women on set, which made taking one's clothes off all the more difficult.

Women have got to stop being polite. If I ever had children, which I don't, the first thing I'd teach a girl of mine is the words 'f - off.'

Being powerful is so much more interesting than being beautiful.

You write your life story by the choices you make.

It has nothing to do with clothing or makeup. Just put your shoulders back and chin up, and face the world with pride.

Actors are rogues and vagabonds. Or they ought to be.

When you're 16, 30 seems ancient. When you're 30, 45 seems ancient. When you're 45, 60 seems ancient. When you're 60, nothing seems ancient.

I don't think it's good to try and change anyone. The trick and the mystery - of relationships and life in general - is to learn to live with the bits you don't like.

Parkinson's is a slow but inevitable process. It's hard living with it on a daily basis. The difficulty facing people with it is that they never quite know 'Can I or can't I do this today?'

I don't like the word 'strong,' because a strong character is never an interesting character. A character is made interesting by their vulnerabilities and their weaknesses.

Where you grew up becomes a big part of who you are for the rest of your life. You can't run away from that. Well, sometimes the running away from it is what makes you who you are.

Don't worry about being a star, worry about doing good work, and all that will come to you.

We waste a lot of our lives sometimes. There are people sitting across from us who would make the whole world better if we spent more time with them in it, but we can't get across that gully.

The concentration of the elite athlete is akin perhaps to the concentration of the writer.

I own the night...the heat's my receipt.

That's one of the things that I say to myself as far as a ritual that I have every day: "What can I do today to make it better than it was yesterday?"

God has always opened one door after another. Sometimes you think all the doors are closed and just when you think that, a door opens.

It is a terrible thing to want something you cannot have. It takes you over. I couldn't think straight because of it. There was no one else, I realized, whom I could possibly tell.

I bought my son a bat for Christmas. On New Year's it flew away.

I'm an eclectic and avid filmgoer. I try to see everything from romantic comedies to blockbusters to art house films, world cinema and documentaries.

After I write, I have nothing to say. The commentary afterwards is superfluous. I write. And that's enough.