"I think that 'Floor Sample' is a story of resiliency, a lifelong spiritual search, and a lifelong sense of spiritual companionship that is most often expressed as creativity. My desire in writing the book was to step from behind the icon of 'Julia the teacher' and introduce 'Julia the artist.'"

"For most people, creativity is a serious business. They forget the telling phrase 'the play of ideas' and think that they need to knuckle down and work more. Often, the reverse is true. They need to play."

"Don't try to 'fix' the child's boredom - rather, let the child find his or her inner resources."

"Art used to be made in the name of faith. We made cathedrals, we made stained-glass windows, we made murals."

"You can't get rid of it with exercise alone. You can do the most vigorous exercise and only burn up 300 calories in an hour. If you've got fat on your body, the exercise firms and tones the muscles. But when you use that tape measure, what makes it bigger? It's the fat!"

"There are about 700 flavors that you can smell, but only five you can taste. A lot of times what you're perceiving as flavor has nothing to do with palette, but it's more to do with scents."

"Sometimes a character is really based on research that you do. Other times it's just based on your imagination or perhaps your conversation with the director. Or sometimes all of the above. It depends on the movie and character."

"Most religions do not make men better, only warier."