Our society doesn't want to help girls like that [in Black Snake Moan]. They just want to use them.

The whole growing-up process seems to have eluded me

As long as we can tell stories about our ability to survive, the more we will hope, not self-destruct.

I like the way my own feet smell. I love to smell my sneakers when I take them off.

I'm trying to just go with the flow and learn from the people around me.

Doing films as an actor, you spend maybe 40 percent of the year doing your chosen profession. If you are on a successful TV show, you spend 80 percent of your year doing the thing you love.

When I talk about feminism and what I think the women's movement needs more of, it's not to detract from anything going on - I think everything going on is fantastic - but there's this missing element. I think we could learn from our detractors a little bit because I feel like they have a plan, a better understanding of things than we necessarily do. You can't change things if you don't understand the other people involved. And if you don't understand yourself, you'll never change.