I think women are conditioned to stand by their man and watch them make it to the top, but most men never believe the person they get into a relationship with is going to rise any higher than she was when they met. It takes a very special, evolved person to be able to deal with change within a relationship.

Let's be reasonable and add an eighth day to the week that is devoted exclusively to reading.

If a young woman is looking at the landscape of Hollywood, what she sees is almost only challenges.

I think Grace [Dunham] and I are always working from a personal place, and the fact that these were issues that we'd been talking about in our own families really clicked, but also Jason's [Benjamin] passion about it and his clear sense that this was going to be something emotional and remarkable to watch. It was very hard not get excited about it and want to help in any way we could.

It was only when I started making short films in college and I was looking for girls to play the me-ish parts that I thought, Well, maybe I'm just going to try doing this myself before somebody else comes in and handles it. For a long time my acting was just a marriage of convenience between me and these characters that I was writing.

The current economic climate means getting out of college is no guarantee of getting a job, and no guarantee of a satisfying work life. My Dad feels that this is the first generation of Americans that expects that there children will have a harder time then they did. That's a fascinating concept.

But ambition is a funny thing: it creeps in when you least expect it and keeps you moving, even when you think you want to stay put.