I never wanted Mary Poppins to be my nanny. I wanted to be her when I grew up.

If you want to understand any woman, you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully.

Shakespeare in Love... such smart writing of an alternative view of history, and such beautiful acting. Like most Americans, I'm a sucker for the accent.

As a journalist I'm comfortable doing library research, and I did a lot! I had a fellowship at Radcliff for a year which gave me access to the Harvard system.

It's a good thing babies don't give you a lot of time to think. You fall in love with them and when you realize how much they love you back, life is very simple.

It's a wonder that any mother ever called a daughter Dinah again. But some did. Maybe you guessed that there was more to me than the voiceless cipher in the text. Maybe you heard it in the music of my name: the first vowel high and clear, as when a mother calls to her child at dusk; the second sound soft, for whispering secrets on pillows. Dee-nah.

There's nothing quite like a real . . . train conductor to add color to a quotidian commute