I think the best role models for women are people who are fruitfully and confidently themselves, who bring light into the world.

It's sort of my fun to sing along with records and imitate people who are on the telephone that have different ways of speaking.

That consciousness of quality, and the need to demand it can galvanize your energies, not just in your work, but in a rigorous exercise of mind and heart in every aspect of your life.

How do I do that preparation [for film]? Just an immersion. I have a musician's, I guess, ear for the sound of the voice but it's also important to me, in the case of [playing] someone who is controversial, to get the outlines of the character right because how they present themselves to the world has a great deal to do with how people feel about them.

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

Young people who learn the arts do better in every phase of their lives.

Teachers perform major miracles in America, daily.