I find that balancing my life with my work with the kids at St. Jude, working on books, working on my career as an actor and taking time out for my husband and family help to cushion a lot of the blows.

That is the difference between St. Jude's and all other children's hospitals. The other hospitals are not bad at all; they're good hospitals, but they're just working with what they know, and St. Jude's is working with what nobody else knows, because they're doing research.

Fame lost its appeal for me when I went into a public restroom and an autograph seeker handed me a pen and paper under the stall door.

I think loss of loved ones is the hardest blow in life.

People don't want to be bothered, if they're not being pressured to change. You have to push people. You have to be the agitator that makes the pearl.

Laughter is important, not only because it makes us happy, it also has actual health benefits. And that's because laughter completely engages the body and releases the mind. It connects us to others, and that in itself has a healing effect.

Losing my parents was probably the hardest and deepest blow from which I've had to recover.