“I want the best product for my audience, and if I don’t care 100%, who will? It’s my name, my likeness that goes out there.”

There’s a part of you that always remains a child, no matter how mature you get, how sophisticated or weary.

It takes me about 10 years to appreciate what it is I’ve done.

Part of our society kills what it loves, despises what it’s created. It really hates success.

It is every woman’s dream to be some man’s dream woman.

Moviemakers can be late to a subject, or afraid, but often they are brave and ahead of their time.

I need instant gratification.

Believe in the power of your voice! Be yourself. Everyone is unique.

I was a personality before I became a person.

We elected a President, not a Pope.

I love road trips! My husband and I love that. We bought a truck with a bench seat so we could put the dog in the middle.

I was raised on the streets, in hot, steamy Brooklyn, with stifled air.

Performing, for me, has always been a very inner process.

The moral immune system of this country has been weakened and attacked, and the AIDS virus is the perfect metaphor for it. The malignant neglect of the last twelve years has led to breakdown of our country’s immune system, environmentally, culturally, politically, spiritually and physically.

I hated singing. I wanted to be an actress. But I don’t think I’d have made it any other way.

Stay true to yourself. People respond to authenticity.

I’m interested in the truth, and unauthorized biographies are not. Yes, I would like to correct those errors someday.

The audience is like my instrument. It’s not just me up there, it’s collaborative.

I’m glad to play for them. But I’d rather play for an audience where half of them were not into it than one where all of them were pretending to be into it, for fear of being uncultured.

Don’t dance for the audience; dance for yourself.

There’s not like this separate caste system where it’s like, “I’m the musician, you’re the audience. Never the two shall meet.” It was a case where it was like, “Hey, you know what? I’m on your level, man.”

It’s spiritual – a good feeling. And although you don’t know them personally, the audience are like your friends.

We were in front of a live audience and I would be acting with the man who was playing my lover, and we used those words, and the audience would titter and laugh, and make me uncomfortable doing the scenes. …

I’ve always been fascinated by the difference between the jokes you can tell your friends but you can’t tell to an audience.

You’re giving the audience in real time something authentic from yourself. As an actor, my bullshit meter was going off like crazy at my first attempts to find my own rock star.