Those stories weren't being written at all - stories about women's inner lives and outer activism. We've come miles and miles, but we still don't have an equal rights amendment yet. We don't have equal pay yet. There's a lot of blind misogyny that's not personal, but institutionalized. We still have work to do, but even just looking at those old Ms. Magazines is a cool thing to do - to see how daring they were. They just went right into the belly of the beast.

My brother became so enamored with that film [West Side Story], that he started taking tap-dancing lessons, and I followed him and started tap dancing, and my mother and father started tap dancing - I was in a class with my family, tap dancing!

Singing really oxygenates your blood. You stretch your lungs and take in much more air into them than before. It's really good for your health.

I did ask Larry David, "How did I get so lucky? How am I here Seinfeld?" He just said, 'Well, when you say your name over and over it just has a really strong rhythm: "Marisa Tomei. Marisa Tomei."

In cultural history, the civil rights movement came before the women's movement.

You can't really be old in L.A., it's kind of like a crime.

I see my parents a lot more often, but what I liked about the challenge of my part was I got to have those little kid feelings of being the daughter, and then switching and being a Mom.