I don't know why it is that we need to denigrate, to knock down. It's so sick.

If a man wants to get it right, he's looked up to and respected. If a woman wants to get it right, she's difficult or impossible. If he acts, produces and directs, he's called multitalented. If she does the same thing, she's called vain and egotistical.

I was a personality before I became a person - I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy and driven.

I arrived in Hollywood without having my nose fixed, my teeth capped, or my name changed. That is very gratifying to me.

No one should have to conform to some mythical concept of the ideal family.

Our role as artist is more controversial now because there are those, claiming the absolute authority of religion, who detest much of our work as much as they detest most of our politics. Instead of rationally debating subjects like abortion or gay rights, they condemn as immoral those who favor choice and tolerance. They disown their own dark side and magnify everyone else's until, at the extreme, doctors are murdered in the name of protecting life. I wonder, who is this God they invoke, who is so petty and mean? Is God really against gun control and food stamps for poor children?

Just like my father, I've always loved education. In school I was a member of the honor society.