I always feel like I can't do it, that I can't go through with a movie. But then I do go through with it after all.

What does it take to be the first female anything? It takes grit, and it takes grace.

I think we all think we sound really good in the shower, where there's that nice reverb, and the water's drowning you out, and there is some liberation in the freedom of being totally alone and really going for it.

Some people are filled by compassion and a desire to do good, and some simply don't think anything's going to make a difference.

I let the actions of my life stand for what I am as a human being. Contend with that, not the words.

I have a very good life - I'm lucky enough not to be deprived.

I was offered, within one year, three different witch roles. It was almost like the world was saying - or the studios were saying - 'We don't know what to do with you.'

I didn't have any confidence in my beauty when I was young. I felt like a character actress, and I still do.

You can't suppress the things that make us human. It's pointless to try.

I'm really interested in the collaborative thing. It's what makes it scary because you never know what it's going to end up like. But you hope. You put yourself in the hands of the best people you can find, and you're completely dependent on the kindness of strangers and their commitment. It's like this mutual delusion.

There are wonderfully talented actresses. It's a really rich field. There isn't as rich a field of material.

All an actor has is their blind faith that they are who they say they are today, in any scene.

I think the most liberating thing I did early on was to free myself from any concern with my looks as they pertained to my work.

The aggregate of everybody's emotion, it's such a powerful thing. You can see it in the Trump rallies, where people - I just know, in their living rooms, would be better people - are driven to the worst possibilities by the bloodlust in a crowd. It just gets ginned up, and they're outside of themselves.

There's no road map on how to raise a family: it's always an enormous negotiation.

Hillary Clinton has taken some fire over 40 years of her fight for families and children. How does she do it? That's what I want to know. Where does she get her grit and her grace? Where do any of our female firsts, our pathbreakers, where do they find that strength?

If I am not confident that I can portray the character perfectly on screen, I won't even try.

My feeling about fears is, if you voice your fears, they may come true. I'm superstitious enough to believe that.

I'm thrilled when I get nominated. I don't count how many and I don't remember how many I've had. I just know it's a lot.

You can't strategize falling in love, can you? It's never worked. People love you the most and set you up, and it doesn't work because you can't predict these things. You fall in love serially.

I'm never so sure as I was in my mid-20s.

I need to go where people are serious about acting.

Sometimes with my children, I remember exactly how I felt as the child in this situation, not just how it feels to be me.

Chris Cooper is one of my favorite actors in the world. I've seen him in most everything he's done.

I believe in imagination. I did Kramer vs. Kramer before I had children. But the mother I would be was already inside me.

Service is the only thing that's important about love. Everybody is worried about 'losing yourself' - all this narcissism. Duty. We can't stand that idea now either... But duty might be a suit of armor you put on to fight for your love.

Show business has been really, really good to me because I can work and take a lot of time off, and I'm extremely undisciplined person.

I couldn't care less about fashion. If I had taken any clothes home, they would have remained in my closet for the rest of their existence.

Having been let out of the barn once, I know I wouldn't be happy if I were home all the time.

Leave me to the thing I love. I love acting. But being called 'the greatest living actress' - a designation not even my mother would sanction - is the opposite of good or valuable or useful. It is a curse for a working actor.

I don't know very much about, honestly, about the Middle East, and yet I've played a lot of different people from a lot of different cultures. The thing that I notice is that we're all - there is a core of humanity that travels right through every culture. And, after all, we're all from Africa originally.

I know what I do and what it means to me and where its sources lie, and that's mine. It still is mine.

Everything we say signifies; everything counts, that we put out into the world. It impacts on kids, it impacts on the zeitgeist of the time.

I go to a lot of movies where people are all around me laughing, and I feel like I'm from outer space because I find it dangerous and stupid and horrible and degrading to women and all these things.

I can't stand most things that I see.

My job is usually to express emotion as freely as possible.

I know movies are a function of our dream world. And when you project yourself on screen, it's easier to project yourself into what you were, not what you are.

I remember, as I was hovering around 40, I thought each movie would be my last, really.

Nobody can swashbuckle a quick-witted riposte like Emma Thompson. She's a writer, a real writer, and she has a relish for the well-chosen word.

The work is the most fun; it seems illicit how much fun it is.

It's amazing how easily people are led to fury and chaos. Unhappy people with guns are not going to make this country great.

Interestingly, young people don't come to you for advice. Especially the ones who are related to you.

The progression of roles you take strings together a portrait of an actor, but it's a completely random process.

There are improbable things suspended in space, like the earth.

For me, clothes are kind of character; I don't follow fashion or understand trends.

I'm older. There's some sort of seniority. As a matter of fact, the seniority ebbs as you get older.

I get a trickling few scripts that I'm lucky enough that some of them are great. I don't get loads of scripts.

I am a humanist. I am for nice, easy balance.

I have a very clear understanding of what my voice is. It's like a B voice. It hovers around B-minus, B-plus. I have great friends who are wonderful singers, and I know I'll never be able to do that. But singing through a character is something I can do.

I had this sort of idolatry for certain actors who preceded me, people who inspired me, so I'm honored to be that way for young actors.