When Carpenter was shooting 'Vampires' in New Mexico when I was living there, I desperately tried to get a job working on that film, and I couldn't. So my first job as a PA was on a CBS movie of the week that was shooting next door, and whenever I co...
When I got a deposit on my very first cake, I took that deposit and I bought some cake mix with it. I've never taken a loan - ever. And we're doing this expansion just like everything we've done in this bakery as we've grown. If we weren't able to af...
People say my films are dark. But like lightness, darkness stems from a reflection of the world. The thing is, I get these ideas that I truly fall in love with. And a good movie idea is often like a girl you're in love with, but you know she's not th...
I thought I was growing wings— it was a cocoon. I thought, now is the time to step into the fire— it was deep water. Eschatology is a word I learned as a child: the study of Last Things; facing my mirror—no longer young, the news—always of de...
I have had quite a few obsessive fans. They write to me and then they turn up at signings and look really sheepish. If I said 'boo' to them, they would run away. I think they maybe believe I could take over their lives and sort them out. If they saw ...
One morning, about four o'clock, I was driving my car just about as fast as I could. I thought, 'Why am I out on the highway this time of night?' I was miserable, and it all came to me: 'I'm falling in love with somebody I have no right to fall in lo...
The Getsmart Prayer I do my laundry and you do yours, I am not in this life to listen to your ceaseless yammering, And you are not in this world for any discernable reason at all. You are you, and I am I, and I got the better deal. And if by chance w...
When I was in fact a child, six and seven and eight years old, I was utterly baffled by the enthusiasm with which my cousin Brenda, a year and a half younger, accepted her mother's definition of her as someone who needed to go to bed at six-thirty an...
I couldn't give away my husband's shoes. I could give away other things, but the shoes - I don't know what it was about the shoes, but a lot of people have mentioned to me that shoes took on more meaning than we generally think they do... their attac...
I certainly couldn't have survived my childhood without books. All that deprivation and pain--abuse, broken home, a runaway sister, a brother with cancer--the books allowed me to withstand. They sustained me. I read still, prolifically, with great pa...
There are times i wish i was a master magician so i could disappear into the folds of time, without consequence, without missing a beat. As an introvert, i need so much time to myself. I feel expansive and peaceful in my own space, constricted and ch...
As a kid, I was scared of losing my mind. In Terrell, Texas, where I grew up, there was a guy that would walk down the street talking to himself. And I used to watch him and feel uneasy. And there was a sanitarium where people would say, 'That's wher...
Once I'd reached the point where I could squirrel away more than 30 digits a minute in memory palaces, I still only sporadically used the techniques to memorize the phone numbers of people I actually wanted to call. I found it was just too simple to ...
Chris Cooper once told me to never have any regrets. After Chris said that to me, I walk into every scene thinking, 'exhaust every possibility.' Once you get to a certain place, it's like you just deliver everything you've got. Don't have any regrets...
As ugly an admission as this is, I met my wife at a party, and if I had been to the same party and she were dressed in different clothes, I might never have talked to her. She might have projected something that I found distasteful, even if she other...
I rebelled by not getting straight A's and not following the path that my elder sister did. She was valedictorian and is very exemplary in her way. I look a lot like her, so I just had to do the opposite. Not that I got bad grades, but I was all abou...
I enjoyed 'Gossip Girl' so much. I cannot tell you how impressed I am with the cast of that show. I was so intimidated doing that show because I thought, 'Oh my gosh, those people are so young and gorgeous, and I'm a million years old, and I need a s...
I have decided now that my mother should be the GPS woman, don't you think? That would be fantastic: 'Make a left in 11 miles. Get over now - I want you to be prepared. Turn right on Elm Street, I want to see if Myrna Rosenblatt is still alive. Make ...
I dunno about you, but I've always fancied knocking off early for a quiet night in with Call The Midwife. Do you get that here, sir?" "No," I told him. For some reason a smile was stuck on my face and it was taking an effort to shift it. "Pity," he s...
When I first pitched 'Parenthood' to Ron Howard and Brian Grazer - who made the movie - I was going through the pitch of what my version was going to be. I noticed anytime I said something different than what was in the movie version, their eyes lit ...
It makes no difference to me what kind of bat I have. For instance, I often grab the first bat I come across when I go up to the plate. Muggsy McGraw uses a light stick and Jake Stenzel uses a heavy one, but I'm liable to take any one of the miscella...
