I do not want to give my power, my self-esteem, or my autonomy, to any person, place, or thing outside myself... The only thing that matters is how I feel about myself, my personal integrity, and my relationship with my Creator.

People say that to me and I think what unites all my characters is that they are hurt; it's most accurate to say I play characters that are hurt but are responding to their environment.

I think that we give the impression, to carry on your metaphor, that we go a little faster than we actually do. I'm fairly lazy so I'm always interested in slowing down.

Everyone can relate to depression. It touches so many. Suicide is the leading cause of death among teenagers. Statistics show that women suffer from depression more than men, but that is probably because men don't report it as much.

I was powerless over my childhood but the coping strategies that I developed, to survive, all of which were creative and brilliant and got me through, as an adult those became my defects of character. Those became my shortcomings, control and all that kind of stuff... and that's my responsibility. I was a blameless child in what happened in the home; I take responsibility for my behaviors as an adult.

A wonderful pastor I know once told me, "Perfectionism is the highest order of self-abuse." So now I try to remind myself that if I engage in perfectionism, I am abusing myself. Period.

For Native Americans, the most shameful and powerful corrective gesture is to literally and physically turn one's back upon a person who has transgressed, and then after they've been banished for a while, they come back into the circle and the members of the tribe say every good thing that person has ever done, because they have to be welcomed back.