My kids are really learning everything from scratch. It's our job to be their tour guides and camp counselors and orientation people. That's a weird responsibility, especially in a world that feels as good as it feels bad.

I'm hopeless - all I know is that time is going past so fast.

A lot of writing about being a mother is not so much writing about the kids themselves. They become placeholders for the shift that happens when you're suddenly in charge of other people.

I'm far, far, far from that. But of course, that's one of the joys of acting is that you can move up in the world, even if - you know, in the characters that you're playing, even if you don't.

I just did adore Daniel - Daniel Radcliffe, who I had worked with before "Harry Potter" and spent a long time telling all the producers they had to see him because I thought he was so terrific. And it's been sad thinking about it because of Alan Rickman.

Listen, I must be 110 by now. Granny is going to kick the bucket at some point.

Little girls, I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the crème de la crème. Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.