The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.
Meryl Streep
Acting is not about being someone different. It's finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there.
Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials.
Integrate what you believe in every single area of your life. Take your heart to work and ask the most and best of everybody else, too.
It's bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children's health than the pediatrician.
You just have to keep on doing what you do. It's the lesson I get from my husband; he just says, Keep going. Start by starting.
I want to feel my life while I'm in it.
I'm curious about other people. That's the essence of my acting. I'm interested in what it would be like to be you.
Instant gratification is not soon enough.
Don't waste so much time thinking about how much you weigh. There is no more mind-numbing, boring, idiotic, self-destructive diversion from the fun of living.
The interesting thing about being a mother is that everyone wants pets, but no one but me cleans the kitty litter.
Grace, respect, reserve, and empathetic listening are qualities sorely missing from the public discourse now.
Don't give up or give in in the face of patronising ridicule, amused disdain, or being ignored.
It's a good thing to imagine yourself doing something you think you can't. I do that every day because, basically, if I had it my way, I'd just stay home and think about what I'm having for supper.
You can't get spoiled if you do your own ironing.
The work will stand, no matter what.
Obsession is an attractive thing. People who are really, really interested and good at one thing and smart are attractive, if they're men.
I think your self emerges more clearly over time.
Personality is immediately apparent, from birth, and I don't think it really changes.
I don't know why I don't watch a lot of movies; I can barely keep up with the things my friends are in. There isn't enough time in life.
Expensive clothes are a waste of money.
How you first meet the public is how the industry sees you. You can't argue with them. That's their perception.
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.
