“I love my job. But all the stuff that comes with it, the thought of being propelled into the limelight again is not something I sit around and fantasize about, certainly. I’d much rather just do my work, and then go home and read my books and watch movies.”

Scapegoating will go on forever. We need someone to blame – illegal immigrants, single moms, people in prison. We need someone to victimize.

I think it’s really important to have a life and have interests outside of this [movie] business, and not rely on this business to validate you as a human being. If you do that, you’re really in a dangerous spot.

I remember the whole thing with the word ambition. I was messed up for a while because I associated it with certain people who just want to be famous. I think, for a while, it was kind of a dirty word for women.

People think that they just want movies like Pretty Woman, when really they – at least the ones that I know personally – have been waiting for something that doesn’t completely insult them.

Break-ups are hard for anybody, but it’s particularly tough when it’s being documented and you see the person’s picture everywhere. Most people don’t have that added problem when they break up with someone.

I was very depressed after breaking off my engagement with Johnny ten years ago. I was embarrassingly dramatic at the time, but you have to remember I was only 19 years old.

I have this sense that I didn’t really start growing up until my twenties.

A woman who wears high heels is very different, I think, than a woman who wears sandals.

A lot of the old movie theaters are closing down now, which is really sad. It’s still in the back of my mind.

Crazy isn’t being broken, or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me, amplified.

I was regarded as the school freak which further reinforced a lot of inhibitions and doubts I had about myself. I was a shy, frightened teenager for a long time.

My father believes that Western religions are death cults, which I agree with.

Remember, I’m the kind of kid who used to get stuffed into a locker by school bullies. I’ve never felt like I’m a big star at any level of my life.

The actors that I do know are people who I think have souls, you know?

I love photography and first editions. I have that in my genes. My father was an archivist.

I was inspired by lots of people, certainly in acting and in writing and stuff, but I never wanted to be somebody else.

What would Prince Charming have for occupation if he had not to awaken the Sleeping beauty?

A mermaid was dying at the shore, but no one dared to save her. Because no one dared to love her.

In a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer.

Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft were written by men.

I liked myths. They weren’t adult stories and they weren’t children’s stories. They were better than that. They just were.

Somehow you’d had your mermaids never smell like fish.

Monsters only ever exist in the shadows if you look for them.

We would look with scorn at witch mothers who build towers but not at princes who lust after caged women.