A real feminist doesn't apologize for her beauty. You can be a sexy, beautiful woman and be the smartest person in the room.

Many casting directors won't hire aspiring actors because you might be burning some chick's headshot under the table so she doesn't get the part.

I think there was no other profession for me. I was either going into an insane asylum or to be an actor.

So are all the kids on the East Coast repeating school next year? Get ready to see a lot of hairy eighth graders. Storm brain drain.

You're 30: You know stuff now. Your 20s were for 'ducking up,' as my auto-correct would say, and learning from those mistakes. (For instance, never again will I convince myself that sleep is for sissies and go straight from a party to the airport. You will not 'sleep on the plane'; you'll vomit in the security line. Go to bed.)

Once I took a bus from my home in Maryland to Philadelphia to live on the streets with some musicians for a few weeks, and then my parents sent me to boarding school at Andover to shape me up.

The amazing thing about becoming a parent is that you will never again be your own first priority. The gift of motherhood is the selflessness that it introduces you to, and I think that's really freeing... I think it allows you to put yourself in other people's shoes...the empathy that it slugs you with, being a mother. And I think it makes you a better storyteller.