I always think of Meryl [Streep] for everything now. There really aren't many actresses around who are truly lucid the way she is.

There are very few women from my mother's generation who worked like that, who just kept a career going all her life and raised children and had horrible relationships and lost all her money and got it back again.

What I really like is the marriage of both [writing and acting] - for instance, with Postcards. I don't actually act in it, but I worked on it with Mike [Nichols] as I went along, creating the character, so it was a bit like acting for me.

I mean, for years [my father] would been doing everything imaginable ... from speed to downers to you name it. I used to call that "changing seats on the Titanic," and I used to say that I myself was not only changing seats on the Titanic but dating the crew.

I don't think Christmas is necessarily about things. It's about being good to one another, it's about the Christian ethic, it's about kindness.

Guys are great before you know who they are,' said Lucy. 'They're great when you're still with who they might be.

Life is a cruel, horrible joke and I am the punch line.