My intent is to speak on behalf of those whose voices are less readily heard - children and women at risk

As a mother trying to raise kids with some kind of a code, an honorable way to solve problems without using violence, I find it interesting to live in a country where your government is allowed to kill, whether it's war or execution. What interests me is not who deserves to die but who deserves to kill.

Really, for me, it's important to know who's pitching and who's catching - just what that scene is supposed to accomplish in terms of storytelling. That being said, on the day, basically what you're trying to get yourself into an open place. And if the character is in a state of anxiety or vulnerability, you try to find some touchstone.

Kurt Vonnegut wasn't a chatty guy, but when he spoke, it was always clear and very funny, in the way that he wrote, in a very specific kind of combination of word groupings and expressions that lived somewhere else.

Just because I haven't yet had any project surgery, I'm not going to knock it, because I think women have the right to do whatever they want to their bodies that make them feel good about themselves.

Before our kids start coming home from Iraq in body bags and women and children start dying in Baghdad, I need to know, what did Iraq do to us?

If sexuality means saying yes to life, then you should be able to remain sexual until the day you die.