I'd like everyone to imagine a world where you get a job as Tom, and then the next day you're Tina. Imagine you're in the world where you love what you do, but people say that you can't be who you are.

[On writing to Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple:] I told her I would play a Venetian blind, dirt on the floor, anything.

If you're not sure how you feel about same-sex marriage, go and meet some of the families and see what they're looking for. Once you take it out of the caricature of what gay people are and what gay marriage is, and put it in the reality of family and what these folks are fighting for, it's really amazing.

We're dealing with old issues that aren't ours. We carry them and we pass them on to those who come after us. I am hoping to crack some of those.

What I am is a humanist before anything - before I'm a Jew, before I'm black, before I'm a woman. And my beliefs are for the human race - they don't exclude anyone.

Taliban-esque: Any behavior that imposes the beliefs of one person on everyone else. Conversations with the Taliban-esque are impossible. They aren't even conversations. With them, it's my way or no way.

If you had women running the weed market, I think there'd be lots of different products. I know periods. I know how horrible they are, and I know enough people who suffer from them that I really want to speak to them so they can carry something in their pocketbook for relief. Or come home, get in a tub, and soak with something that will actually work.