I really just wanted to be a writer, but people tell you, 'You should have a backup career,' so I thought, 'OK, I'll act.' That was the foolishness of my vision for my life - that my backup career would be completely undependable.

There is a point in the grieving process when you can run away from memories or walk straight toward them.

The thing about losing any loved one, I think, particularly in a long disease, is that you know that other people have gone through it and are going through it, but I think for every person it feels unique.

Some people, when they die, leave so much life behind that we wonder how they did it.

Laura Bush went on national television during the week of my father's funeral and spoke out against embryonic stem cell research, pointing out that where Alzheimer's is concerned, we don't have proof that stem-cell treatment would be effective.

The most ethical way to deal with an unethical situation would be to simply say: 'We did something wrong.' But nobody in a family like mine would ever respond like this.

You know, if you hang around this earth long enough you really see how things come full circle.