There is some liberation in the freedom of being totally alone and really going for it.

Having wrinkles is at once strange and exciting.

We don't like to talk about that in America, but there are classes in America. And she [Julia Child] was of a class of women who were wealthy, privately educated, went to Smith, moved in that sort of circle. She was conscripted into the OSS, which is the early CIA, which was all filled with Yalies and Princeton and Harvard people and a few women who were typing mostly but also had something to do.

It's amazing what you can get if you quietly, clearly and authoritatively demand it.

The work itself is the reward, and if I choose challenging work, it'll pay me back with interest. At least I'll be interested, even if nobody else is.

The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.

If I am not confident that I can portray the character perfectly on screen, I won't even try.