I like playing that character who brings love to people, who puts people in a place where they're apt to encounter love.

I thought I had learned how to have an intimate relationship. And I thought I'd learned how to be happy. Everybody has issues. For me, the challenge is intimacy, but I really didn't start to get that until I turned 60.

Trying to understand the fear I had of truly opening my heart - first, you have to be whole to do that. The fears, the voices in my mind saying, "Oh, you don't want to do that, you might get hurt, they might abandon you - "those are ghost voices from my mom and dad.

Movies are collective, cooperative endeavours, which I like a lot. But writing is all up to you, it's what's so scary; it's just you and that page. But I really like it a lot.

Sex and intimacy are not the same: You can have sex all your life and never be intimate with a person. There has to be empathy in the relationship. You have to enjoy seeing through their eyes. When you're with them, you're there and not thinking about what you're gonna do tomorrow.

When a significant other - a spouse, a parent or someone you're close to - is dying, it forces you to think about your life, about what you feel about death. What I realized from my dad's dying was that I wasn't scared of dying. But I was terrified of regrets. I was terrified of getting to the end of my life with a lot of Why didn't I's.

If our work is stimulating and rewarding, if it pushes us to grow...we become more valuable human beings.