I never felt terribly comfortable in the public eye.

If you leave home for a while ... you question the conventional wisdom you've grown up with. That doesn't mean you have to change your opinions or who you are, but it's good to ask the questions.

I just needed to leave Hollywood.

Jazz is my comfort music, like comfort food.

It's the universal feeling that we all are alone - that we're all different. I think the movie's one resounding theme is that everybody feels the same, and we're all alone together. Some people come up to me on the street and thank me for helping them get through their teen years.

I feel like women very often do write differently than men, but women write things that men can't write.

I think when people hear about a celebrity writing a book of any kind, the assumption is that it was dictated to a ghostwriter.