“I’ve read the Bible. I think the Bible’s a great book, but it’s a novel. It’s beautifully written and la-di-da, but people really took it the wrong way.”

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.

I would love to someday do a play. I did one when I was very young in San Francisco, where I grew up. A girl can dream.

You go through spells where you feel that maybe you’re too sensitive for this world. I certainly felt that.

What’s awful about being famous and being an actress is when people come up to you and touch you. That’s scary, and they just seem to think it’s okay to do it, like you’re public property.

I was raised to believe that religion is a beautiful thing, but it’s fiction.

I don’t want to preach, and I don’t want to tell people what to do.

I was exhausted and going through a terrible depression.

When you finally accept that it’s OK not to have answers and it’s OK not to be perfect, you realize that feeling confused is a normal part of what it is to be a human being.

Society makes suicide so romantic.

Words could paint pictures.

Maybe that’s why it was so easy for you to break me, you can always tear the pages of an open book.

I began writing a book on love because I felt that the United States is moving away from love.

Books are great. A lot of condensed knowledge in the palm of your hand.

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

Life-transforming ideas have always come to me through books.

It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.

Her eyes are my favorite book to read.