“After Leaving Las Vegas I did assume that things would get a lot easier than they've been. But it's just been a mirror of the way my career's been from the beginning, so for it to have changed would have been strange. My career has never been perfect.”

“After three major movies, I was like, 'Oh, I guess you're supposed to get a publicist?' Girls that are in the business now that are successful are more savvy.”

“Almost six years ago, before I was given the incredible opportunity to be in 'Leaving Las Vegas,' I was going through a long period of artistic confusion. I'd spent years doing work that hadn't pushed me enough, and I was beginning to wonder if I had any talent.”

“As the only girl growing up among three brothers, I was always afraid of being excluded. If there was a game to be played, a sport to be learned, a competition to join, I was on my feet and ready. I didn't spend much time alone for fear that I'd miss out.”

“Every experience makes you grow.”

“For many years, I decided not to do television because I have three children, but now my youngest is finally old enough to be in kindergarten. So I'm not feeling that kind of tug of not being with her as much.”

“Growing up with three boys in a heavily male-dominated world, I especially needed to express myself as a woman.”

“I did 'The Karate Kid,' then I just went back to college. I didn't know how much money it made and I didn't have a publicist. I didn't have any sense of the business part of it.”

“I don't have high expectations anymore. Maybe they've just been beaten out of me.”

“I don't think 'Cocktail' was a perfect critical success, but it touched a vein in our culture.”

“I feel like my first conversation with someone, I really get a good feeling about who that person is and mainly about how open they are.”

“I have worked with another first-time director who was not that open, and it was probably one of the worst experiences I ever had, so my antennas are really out.”

“I may be the girl next door, but you wouldn't want to live next to me.”

“I may look like the girl next door, but you wouldn't want to live next door to me.”

“I really love 'Soapdish.' I wish 'Soapdish' had more of a moment because I felt that that is a really strong, funny movie. Kevin Kline is hilarious in that movie.”

“I spent my whole life trying to play the games males play.”

“I understand now that the vulnerability I've always felt is the greatest strength a person can have. You can't experience life without feeling life. What I've learned is that being vulnerable to somebody you love is not a weakness, it's a strength.”

“I was on my own at Wellesley, surrounded by a lot of young women who were motivated and intellectually curious. I started to read because I was required to do so for class, but I soon found myself enjoying the seclusion of the library. I came to see reading as an important way to learn about people, including myself.”

“It would be really wonderful if people connected to the loneliness of what it means to be a human being in the world today.”

“Like, that was weird in 'Hamlet 2,' because I played myself there, fully myself, but then I realized, 'Oh, I'm not playing myself. I'm some weird version of myself.' So as an actress, you're always playing something, I don't even know who I am, how could I become me? I don't know what that is.”

“My mom had started to go to work when I was nine or ten, so I was aware of women trying to find their own identities by working. But I was still influenced by men to such an extreme. I wanted to play their games and wanted to compete in their world and be like them.”

“People love to talk about how the '70s are the only time they made movies about characters, and adult movies, and complicated people. But in the '80s, they got away with some of those too.”

“Robert Kennedy was such an inspiring figure. His interest in politics seemed to come not from a desire for power, but from a need to help our society live up to its ideals.”

“Sometimes when I read about my rebellion in print it sounds a little overrated.”

“The darker, more complex and emotional the part is, the easier it is for me. But I don't take any of that stuff home with me at the end of the day.”

“Today I still feel like the most illiterate person ever to have roamed the campuses of Wellesley and Harvard, where I later transferred. I remain intimidated by all the books I haven't read, but over the years I've come to realize that being a student is a lifelong adventure.”