As a writer, you look for someplace to start. Once you have a beginning and you've written the first two sentences, nothing else will ever change it.

When I was sixteen, I began to think outside the box of my small town. Not that the people in my small town are in a box - they're not! There's a brilliant college there, and I had brilliant teachers from that college. But in terms of a conservative upbringing, which I did have within my own family, I just began to question things and to think for myself.

Singers, musicians, and songwriters don't want to use the word "acting" because we want it to be more real than that - we want it to come from us: naturally, truly, really.

Every straight man I know is a feminist. They wouldn't be my friends if they weren't.

You don't want to say somebody did a great job of acting. You want to say, "Where did he find that person? How did he get that factory worker to come out of the factory and be on camera?" You want to believe that person is real.

I was brought up in the Christian church and I studied in the teachings of Jesus. I believed in caring for others and trying to be kind. It's something I still have to work on every day.

I don't understand that about Taylor Swift, or about Joan [Mitchell] - how can she not say she's a feminist?! People don't understand what the word means. It simply means equal rights before the law.