"I think I'm learning to be bolder in my career choices and be more confident in my personal life. I haven't always felt very secure as an individual, but now I feel I certain confidence and sense of self that gets me through the day a lot better than before."

"It's also a question of finding good material and interesting roles. I'm not the only actress out there, and good parts just don't fall into your lap that easily. But I like most of the films I've made recently and so I'm pretty positive about the future."

"I have this sense that I didn't really start growing up until my twenties."

"You've got to grow up sometime."

"Whenever I go to Germany I find that my readers have T-shirts with my book covers printed on them. They come to all the events, they have gifts and they come with their families. They are always very open to sharing their personal stories."

"It's much easier to write when you're sad. But you can end up isolated and depressed because you almost need to put yourself in that situation to have that angst to write from."

"When I was about 13 or 14, I had an English teacher who made a deal with me that I could get out of doing all of the year's regular work if I would write a short story a week and on Friday read it to the class."

"The things I want to know are in books my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read."