“The pain is always bringing me a lesson. If I listen to the lesson when the pain is manageable, the pain won’t get gargantuan and flatten me entirely, because I will have received the message at the center.”

I wouldn’t make it through the day without singing. It is my solace and my meditation and my release. It lets me know how I’m processing things, what I’m processing, if I’m out of touch in some area.

Notorious’ is a masterwork. I can watch it every day.

There are a lot of women who feel that they have done all the work in their relationship only for someone else to step in and take the love and credit for it.

I have to meditate before I go to bed, always. I have to let the day go and let the eternal in.

I have to welcome the pain like I welcome the joy.

Love is a true unconditional space to me. To love someone or to be loved is to be seen, and I think, gosh, as humans, all we want is to be seen, to be heard, right? To be valued. To be respected. But mostly just to be held in a safe, unconditional space.

I think true beauty is everywhere. Be it. See it. Notice it. Love it. Be grateful for it. Marvel at it. It’s everywhere. It’s all around us all the time.

It’s a lot of fun to just say to people, proudly, ‘I get to play the First Lady.’ It’s just fun to say.

Absolutely undermining my confidence in every moment. Bad tape in my head all the time.

My dad used to say, ‘Just be yourself and you’ll be fine,’ but it’s really, really true.

I used to be so hard on myself. So hard on myself. Just my own worst critic to the nth degree.

The more I resist anything, the stronger it gets.

I feel it is a blessing, a duty, an honor, that we give the love that we have, and we share the lives that we have with our fullest heart.

There’s a lot of life on the planet that needs love, wants love, deserves love, in whatever capacity we are able.

I miss singing. I did Broadway forever.

I think you choose how you walk through this life. I think if you choose to participate in a paradigm that is looks-based, if you’re an actor, then it can be empowering in some ways, and it can be really limiting in some ways in terms of time and longevity.

You really want to get a headache? Try to understand Internet advertising.

You’re trying to escape from your difficulties, and there never is any escape from difficulties, never. They have to be faced and fought.

[Democrats] are trying on every front to increase the role of government.

The only difference between ‘try’ and ‘triumph’ is varying degrees of ‘umph’

I think it’s very hard for a woman to be treated as a person and not just as a woman who tries to become a politician.

My work doesn’t speak about individuals (it’s not portraiture in the traditional sense), it tries to speak about life in general in cities of the West – which is where I live and what I understand.

The only way therefore to try a Piece of Wit, is to translate it into a different Language: If it bears the Test you may pronounceit true; but if it vanishes in the Experiment you may conclude it to have been a Punn.

Look, sometimes, no matter how hard you try, sometimes you need a bit of luck.