I never had any desire to become a well-known actress.

Every milieu has something ridiculous about it - film-making, the music world, painting - because people who take themselves seriously become funny pretty quickly.

I was interested in the mystical element of humor - was humor part of creation? Is God laughing at us, or with us?

Writing is still a bit of a miracle - the whole process: I see the world, filter the world, write down abstract squiggles on a page which somebody is then able to connect with. I'm still amazed by it and think I always will be.

I am half-Jewish, and yet really hadn't been brought up within the Jewish faith. So I had felt culturally Jewish, if that's possible, without really understanding it.

I think one of the great joys of being a writer is you can transcend everything, even your own sex, what century you live in, and how you think. I found it quite natural to think as a male because I actually think that as a female, one often thinks in the mind of a male in terms of eroticism. You think about what the other person feels. So it's not that hard to imagine being that person.

I never had any desire to become a well-known actress.