I always thought the saddest feeling in life is when you're dancing in a really joyful way and then you hit your head on something.

One of my favorite facts about Jason [Benjamin] is that he collects shirts from tattoo parlors. He has a bunch of tattoo parlor T-shirts, but no tattoos. And then he wears, like, vans and jeans. My boyfriend said he looks like a modern Bruce Springsteen, which is a pretty high compliment.

Artists themselves are neurotic and fearful people, and you can look at their work and figure out what they're scared of.

Escapism for me can come in the form of someone else's reality.

It's funny, I never considered that people are going to see me on the show and maybe stop me on the subway.

The idea of being a feminist-so many women have come to this idea of it being anti-male and not able to connect with the opposite sex-but what feminism is about is equality and human rights. For me that is just an essential part of my identity. I hope [Girls] contributes to a continuance of feminist dialogue

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.