Quotes

I had this almost secret life of going to 'Star Wars' conventions because,' when I was younger, Star Wars' had phased into the uncool part of its life and had yet to become cool again for everybody else.

As a documentary filmmaker, I couldn't afford to give my children the lifestyle I had in San Francisco growing up.

My mother, throughout her entire life, has been faithful to the church, even though the church has not been that faithful to her because of her politics.

Love is a component of many different things - the baggage you bring, the moment, what you need in your life, seeing someone as a portal for understanding everything, and all the intensity that brings. It's not something to count on and act like it's a stable thing.

People are fascinated with eternal life and physical power - the idea of having no vulnerability. We all feel small and powerless in the world at times, so the temptation to be a vampire is compelling.

To be an actress and act crazy is really fun for me, to be able to be acting like you'd never be able to act in your real life and scream and freak out. It's an interesting test for an actor.

When you're trying to sustain a high level of intensity and panic, sometimes it actually helps to have something happen that makes you really afraid because even if in real life it wouldn't make you that scared, to take that little bit of fear and be melodramatic about it, I guess, and convince yourself that it's worse, can be effective.

When I was first starting out as a kid, I tried to pad my resume with everything I had ever done - ice-skate, carry a tune. I can't dance for my life, but I can learn, so I'll tell people I can dance. I play the piano - I'm a really good pianist, actually.

It made me feel cooler in real life to know I could be The Rock's daughter.

Horror films are very effective to me; they have an impact on me. I think that real life things scare me a lot more.

When I first got here, I thought L.A. sucked. I hated it. I had this pretentious Manhattan thing. But now I've made such a life here, and I'm so happy here. They're just really different places. I can't really compare them because there's great things about both of them.

I Instagram and tweet a lot about my dog. I think he is one of the most interesting things about my life right now. All my motherly instincts go toward this dog. I love the dog.

I'm a huge fan of Steve Martin. He's hilarious, but he has this depth to him and this way of dealing with the difficult things in life with a sense of humor that I think has helped me as an actress.

Having dinner with somebody you've looked up to your whole life is quite a memorable thing. Like, 'Wow. I'm having dinner with someone who is a huge inspiration to me.' That's intense.

I write and I read, and I write and read my way into and out of ideas and life. And that's what we do. That's what storytellers do.

You can have an intense connection to someone without being a good, lifelong mate for him. Love is complicated and difficult that way.

The memoirs that have come out of Africa are sometimes startlingly beautiful, often urgent, and essentially life-affirming, but they are all performances of courage and honesty.

I want to make words out of life. That's bigger than me. That's as big a creative force as - bigger than, for me, even having children. That felt more accidental - wonderful, but accidental.

I didn't grow up in public life. I lived with my mother in Boston, not in Washington, DC, so I was somewhat sheltered from that.

Sometimes I want to withhold judgement on whether something is good or bad, but I do feel like identifying with TV characters - connecting to them emotionally more than you connect to literal, physical people in your life - causes problems. They just don't have the same existence or boundaries as you do. They resemble us, but they are not us.

I think I may be the most well-adjusted person you'd ever meet who thinks constantly about falling out of her life. And my life is pretty great! It's not like I don't know that.

My dad sacrificed many things in life for me. He abandoned a very promising and lucrative career of an army officer just so that he could continue helping me with my chess and accompanying me to tournaments.

The human overpopulation issue is the topic I see as the most vital to solve if our children and grandchildren are to have a good quality of life.

If the whole world went vegan, there would be less war. How you eat determines your mood and your outlook on life.

No matter how successful you are, no matter how good you are at what you do, even if a golden path rolls out in front of your feet your whole life, there will come one particularly bleak Tuesday when you glance over at Facebook and notice that Jen From Down The Hall has just won an Oscar.