Most directors, I discovered, need to be convinced that the screenplay they're going to direct has something to do with them. And this is a tricky thing if you write screenplays where women have parts that are equal to or greater than the male part. And I thought, 'Why am I out there looking for directors?'—because you look at a list of directors, it's all boys. It certainly was when I started as a screenwriter. So I thought, 'I'm just gonna become a director and that'll make it easier.'

When I buy a new book, I always read the last page first, that way in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side.

I don't want to be someone that you're settling for. I don't want to be someone that anyone settles for. Marriage is hard enough without bringing such low expectations into it, isn't it?

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.

No one is more romantic than a cynic. I do think that you don't become cynical or 'unsentimental' unless there's a core of romanticism or sentiment that's had a few chips nicked into it.

[on the screenplay for "When Harry Met Sally"] It struck me that the movies had spent more than half a century saying, "They lived happily ever after" and the following quarter century warning that they'll be lucky to make it through the weekend. Possibly now we are now entering a third era in which the movies will be sounding a note of cautious optimism: You know, it just might work.

With any child entering adolescence, one hunts for signs of health, is desperate for the smallest indication that the child's problems will never be important enough for a television movie.