I realize that we all think we might be terrible people. But we only reveal this before we ask someone to love us. It is a kind of undressing.

That's the artist's job, really: continually setting yourself free, and giving yourself new options and new ways of thinking about things.

I steeled myself against laughter; I would rather die than laugh. I didn’t laugh, I did not laugh. But I died, I did die.

I suppose the daily disciplines are just a reflection of the qualities of my inner world - a mixture of paralysis and terror and a lighter, freer, kind of rebellious woman. So those are just constantly pushing against each other, and that's played out in every area of my life.

Some people need a red carpet rolled out in front of them in order to walk forward into friendship. They can't see the tiny outstretched hands all around them, everywhere, like leaves on trees.

I'm always just trying to get the work done so that I can be free - like, with the sense that, like, the real me has no interest in this? I just gotta do it for my boss. But the catch is that I'm never free, I never finish the work, so I don't know who this freewheeling employee with extracurricular interests is.

Making a movie: It's so hard. It's the hardest of all the things I do.