When you say you're 40, you can't call yourself an ingenue any more.

Automatically everybody thinks of me as an actress who is trying to sing. And if I weren't me I'd probably think the same thing.

My parents always raised us with the idea of having college in mind. You sort of need a college education. It's part of life. It's something that you do - like going to your prom.

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

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.

The wonderful thing about books is you never run out of them, you can just keep going. So I'm always finding new writers, or old writers that I just happen not to have read.

Originally I considered myself a singer.