Girls are trained to say, ‘I wrote this, but it’s probably really stupid.’ Well, no, you wouldn’t write a novel if you thought it was really stupid. Men are much more comfortable going, ‘I wrote this book because I have a unique perspective that the world needs to hear.’ Girls are taught from the age of seven that if you get a compliment, you don’t go, ‘Thank you’, you go, ‘No, you’re insane.

I'll start by saying that "Fifty Shades of Grey:" It's like I don't have. an elicit confused relationship to my sexuality. So I don't need a book like that.

On Girls I like being a mouthpiece for the issues I think young females face today. It’s always shocking when people question whether it’s a feminist show. How could a show about women exploring women not be? Feminism isn’t a dirty word. It’s not like we’re a deranged group who think women should take over the planet, raise our young on our own and eliminate men from the picture. Feminism is about women having all the rights that men have.

I feel prettier with a naked face and ChapStick. But a good haircut makes a huge difference.

I just hope that I continue to keep a line between my private life and who I play, even if they are closely intertwined, and so I'm careful. I don't even know where my line is, but I know I have a line.

It's not brave to do something that doesn't scare you. Performing in sex scenes that I direct, exposing a flash of my weird puffy nipple, those things don't fall into my zone of terror.

I started writing plays, but the fact that plays don't last forever was too much for me to bear.