My childhood was influenced by the roles my father played in his movies. Whether Abraham Lincoln or Tom Joad in the Grapes of Wrath, his characters communicated certain values which I try to carry with me to this day.

Feminism is about ultimate, limitless reality.

I have always been with men who were type A, alpha males. I must exist because I'm with him, I'd think. But what made them what they were also often meant they were lacking empathy genes. And now I know I don't need an alpha male; I need somebody who's interesting. I'm not pretending that I'm 100 percent healed, so I might not know if a man is right for me right away, but it wouldn't take me seven years to figure it out. Maybe a month or two.

You don’t learn from successes; you don’t learn from awards; you don’t learn from celebrity; you only learn from wounds and scars and mistakes and failures. And that’s the truth.

We need women friends, women who challenge us... I have chosen not to have any more plastic surgery. Sally Field and I have kind of made a pact about that. It's really hard, especially if you're a public person. But I want to give a face to aging.

I feel like my honesty gives people the freedom to talk about things they wouldn't otherwise.

My life is a stairway to heaven, not a 'decline into decrepitude.