The world is what you make of it, friend. If it doesn’t fit, you make alterations.

When I was 16, nobody else talked like me. Nobody else sounded like me.

For a while, I thought, maybe I should direct, until I got to New York and saw the stupidity of that idea. If it's hard to get into acting, what is it like for a woman to become a director?

I was always trying to make up for my size, to compensate. So to get people to take you seriously, you have to come at things with a great deal of strength. You have to emphasize that the way you are is unusual. That you don't come along every day.

I can't be a man. But I can embrace the head of a man, the intelligence of a man, the spirit of a man.

For me to want to be an actor was an improbable idea. I wasn't beautiful or pretty in any conventional way. I wasn't an ingenue at 22. But I was always certain of it and certain of its power. I felt the power when I went to the theater at 9, 10, 12 and 14.

People are always casting me for what they call my 'authority.