I think that all of us are 5-year-olds and we don`t want to be embarrassed in the schoolyard.

If there`s a message, it`s that the unlovable and unattractive parts of ourselves should be embraced. The only real currency between people is what happens when they`re not cool. And I hope people feel OK about not being cool.

I usually don`t read things written about me and I certainly don`t read things if they are inappropriate.

I know for me the subject of how to be in a relationship is precious and complicated and challenging. It wouldn`t be right to make it look too easy. [On her approach to Mad About You]

You have five seconds to enjoy it and then you remember who you didn`t thank.

It`s more important to know your weaknesses than your strengths...

Not having incredible success for a long time probably helped. Of course some 20-year-old beautiful girl, who goes from barely acting to being on the cover [of magazines] ... that`s going to be disorienting and confusing, and people can`t really be surprised if they have a skewed perspective of their importance in the world, when everyone comes together and tells them they`re the most important thing in the world, then hates them for believing it. I didn`t go through that. So that was lucky.

My no-good Hollywood liberalism, you mean? I don`t know what the right thing to do is. All I know is that when it`s a month before the election, and there are issues that mean so much to me, and someone says "Put your name and your face on this, it might help", I am moved and I say yes. Do I think it`s a good thing for famous people to put their name and face on stuff? I don`t know. When I stop and think about it, maybe, if I want to help, I should just put a baseball hat on, not use my face at all, and be one of the people on the march, write a letter to my congressman, and just be a citizen.

I don`t like people to think they know me. It makes me queasy.

I always used to say absolutely yes, and I didn`t miss my childhood, because I was a child on the set, and often I was working with other kids. On the other hand, do I feel like I was too serious, like I had this vocation?

You`re not in control of anything. You`re not even like a painter, who can say "I`m just going to go into my studio and do my work, and if nobody wants to buy it, well, maybe they will when I`m dead". You can`t even do that. You`re waiting for somebody to hand you a part. You`re in this wildly dependent position.

On a professional level, an Oscar means that your salary suddenly increases by a few million and you get offered a lot more movies which in the past you had to beg to have a chance to read for.

I`m not very sexy or glamorous! I have this girl next door kind of look and I have to do the best I can with that.

To tell you the truth, I don`t have any expensive tastes. I`m just as happy going to a beach and sitting in the sun today as I was ten years ago. I wouldn`t feel comfortable if I drove there in a Bentley convertible.