When I go into the stores, I pet the saddles. Until security comes and takes me away.

I didn't have any ambition to produce big mainstream popcorn movies.

I made, like, five movies while I was in college. I think they just weren't memorable movies. I've taken breaks as the years have gone on - I burn out every once in a while.

As an actor, I'm attracted to drama; as a director, it's humor - because it's the story of my life, and I can't be that serious about it. Being alone is a big theme in all my movies, both as a director and as an actress.

I like to be in a different place when I make a movie so that I can't really focus on anything else, and that is your world.

When I was growing up, books took me away from my life to a solitary place that didn't feel lonely. They celebrated the outcasts, people who sat on the margins of society contemplating their interiors. . . Books were my cure for a romanticized unhappiness, for the anxiety of impending adulthood. They were all mine, private islands with secret passwords only the worthy could utter.

There is no doubt that each of us is born an individual. Why is it then that so many of us die carbon copies?