"Directing is so interesting. You know, it just sort of encompasses everything that you see, that you know, that you've felt, that you have observed."

"I'm not that ambitious any more. I just like my privacy. I wish I really wasn't talked about at all."

"Marlon Brando. The finest actor who ever lived. He was my idol when I was 13. He's done enough work to last two lifetimes. Everything I do, I think: Can Brando play this with me?"

"Why is it men are permitted to be obsessed about their work, but women are only permitted to be obsessed about men?"

"My mother never really thought I could become anything."

"I got sent to a health camp when I was about 6 years old, and we all had to wear the same starchy blue uniform. The lady who took care of me after school knit me a burgundy sweater. It was the only thing that gave me any individuality."

"I'll see a celadon green room in an 18th century New Hampshire house and just fall in love. Colors stay in my head."

"I do have friends that are Republicans, and we have very spirited conversations on a whole range of issues. I am often baffled by why they are Republicans, but I enjoy the dialogue and can move beyond politics to find common ground in my personal relationships."

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

"I don't read music. Not even essentially. Not even nonessentially."

"When I was working a lot, I felt guilty as a parent. I couldn't pick up my son every day from school, bake him cookies and that kind of thing."

"Most awards, you know, they don't give you unless you go and get them - did you know that? Terribly discouraging."

"I'm tired of malicious articles slandering me."

"Why am I so famous? What am I doing right? What are the others doing wrong?"

"I'd started going to acting classes at 14, played 'Medea' at 15 and really wanted to be a classical actress."

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

"I still like my antique clothes."

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

"I also have intense relationships with furniture... probably because we practically had none when I was growing up."

"My friend Quincy Jones says we won our first Grammys together in 1963. I have no recollection. I don't even remember the room. When he showed me the picture, I remembered what I wore. But it's like awards don't mean anything."

"My mother had a great voice. Not like mine, not like my sister's, not like my son's - a high soprano voice, but like a bird. I mean, really beautiful."

"I've always liked working really hard and then doing nothing in particular. So, consequently, I didn't overexpose myself; I guess I maintained a kind of mystery. I wasn't ambitious."

"I have one son. Of everything I've done in my life, nothing matches the feeling of having life growing inside you."

"I hear these melodies. I hear horn lines and string lines. That's what's fun about recording with an orchestra."

"Eighteenth century American furniture and the design of the architects Greene and Greene are my special love."

"I've considered having my nose fixed. But I didn't trust anyone enough. If I could do it myself with a mirror."

"Just like my father, I've always loved education. In school I was a member of the honor society."

"I need instant gratification."

"I was kind of a wild child. I wasn't taught the niceties of life."

"I never sing in the shower either."

"When I sing, people shut up."

"When they tried me out as a host on TV, I found that I just couldn't be that gregarious person. I was stranger than that."

"I like to stay home a lot. I like to do other things too, like decorate or build."

"It is sort of boring to stay in the same spot. You know, I didn't set out to become the first to do this, the first to do that. It was just that my interests were so diversified."

"I started going to acting school when I was 14, and I would always have my own take on things."

"In the music business, we all do different things, but we sit there and admire other people who can write a song differently or sing differently. It's not so competitive."

"My mother told me I should be a secretary, but I wanted to be an actress from when I was very young."

"My nose was part of my heritage, and if I had talent to sing and to act, why wasn't that enough?"

"Life's too short. Start with Dessert!"

"As a young woman, I wanted nothing more than to see my name in lights."

"Art does not exist only to entertain, but also to challenge one to think, to provoke, even to disturb, in a constant search for truth."