“I was a handful growing up.”

My dad is Irish. I spent my childhood going back and forth between Ireland and America.

I used to experiment all the time with my hair color.

When I kiss a girl for a part, people think it’s sexy. But if two guys kiss, suddenly there’s a backlash. It’s a double standard.

When I first did theatre, I was always doing comedies; it was always my first love. But it wasn’t what I was picked for at first, for films and TV.

Only the really young are fearless, have the optimism, the romanticism to take unimaginable risks.

Believe it or not, I’m a big fan of patchouli oil. I know it’s not a universally liked fragrance. I usually combine it with other essential oils – I have many mixtures I like.

I’ve always been a fan of science fiction. My family, we all used to watch ‘Star Trek’ together, which is kind of a nerdy family activity.

As you get older, you start to really ask questions like, ‘Is this the road I should be walking down?,’ because every decision seems more final, as you get older.

I feel like the luckiest child in the world because I got to grow up in Ireland. In summer is when you really grow up. During the year, I would go back to the States, and all year long really couldn’t wait to get back to Ardmore.

I don’t own a scale, and Tao banned the word ‘fat’ from our house. If we eat too much, we say, ‘I feel clogged up.’

I’m a natural blonde, but I feel like a brunette.

If you fall off a horse, you get back up. I am not a quitter.

Now I’m doing a film festival for kids and writing a script about a kidnapped journalist in Afghanistan.

When you’re a working actor and you’re happy to be one, you can’t focus all your energy on acting because you will go crazy. You have to focus as much energy as you can away from yourself.

I got a divorce, and I felt like I finally started my career. I started making movies and projects that I just really believed in.

I think my confidence has developed over the years in terms of the speed at which I will reveal how collaborative I want to be.

When we learn to respond to disappointments with acceptance, we give ourselves the space to realize that all our experiences—good and bad alike—are opportunities to learn and grow.

Find out what your gift is and nurture it.

Every time you achieve something, you want to go after what’s next. I’d like to see my own shows grow and someday be a headliner, fill up stadiums.

Most everything that you want is just outside your comfort zone.

The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.

History is not the soil in which happiness grows. The periods of happiness in it are the blank pages of history.

We know accurately only when we know little; doubt grows with knowledge.

Let woman share the rights, and she will emulate the virtues of man; for she must grow more perfect when emancipated, or justify the authority that chains such a weak being to her duty.