Here I am, one of the most colorful women of my time - if not of my block - being made to sound positively legumelike in printed interviews.

You have to be alert. When my daughter, Sophie, came out of the womb, she was instantly alert, as if she had been here before. And she was a little disappointed that she was here again.

The first time I saw a picture of [fabled actress] Ethel Barrymore - she was on Broadway and she was wearing pearls. I thought, "That's who I should grow up to be." It's odd, because it was her physical image that I wanted; I had no idea what it was like actually to be her. In those days, we weren't bombarded by images the way we are now, and the ones we did have were more vivid in people's minds.

Honey, I can smell the scent of another woman from 500 paces.

The old forms of entertainment are not extinct. Live performances are the pinnacle. If you can something that people want to see live, then you have a great career.

Total contentment is only for cows.

Most people are walking around the city like corpses; they aren't alive enough to notice the trash. They come from other places and they see it as a big garbage dump. Do you want to live and work in a garbage dump? I don't. That's partly because I grew up in the most pristine environment possible - Hawaii, where it is sacrilege to leave your garbage on the ground.