When I pass a flowering zucchini plant in a garden, my heart skips a beat.

When I was twenty-one, a friend gave me a book called Diet for a New America by John Robbins, which exposed the brutal practices of American factory farms. That, coupled with a lecture from Leonardo DiCaprio (when he was nineteen and I was twenty-one) about how such animals are kept and processed, made me lose my desire for factory farm pork and beef right there.

I never thought that I'd be considered to have a good body. I was bony up top and kind of dumpy on the bottom.

Every time I have a bikini wax, Cameron Diaz holds me down.

As you get older, you choose friends based on not only what feels resonant and warm but if they're bringing something to your life. My women friends are incredibly intelligent. There's no posturing, no competition. Especially in Los Angeles, I see pockets of friends who are very competitive, and I think, What is the point? I would rather be alone in bed with a book than have a girlfriend who is like that.

I used to say to my dad, 'How did you and Mom stay married for all this time?' and he'd say, 'Two things. Number one: You gotta have the same dreams. One person can't be daydreaming about walking down the street in Paris, the other person want to work in a coal mine. Number two: We never wanted to get divorced at the same time.'

I never knew I could suffer so much. And then, at the same time, you think, now I'm ready to open myself up to life in another way, to make it worth something and make it about the right things and not waste time.