I can't control what people think. I'm not trying to manipulate people's thoughts or sentiments. I write all the time. You have to experience life make observations and ask questions. It's machine-like how things are run now in hip-hop and my ambitions are different.

There's a positive side to film and television the sense of feeding into the theater... Your fans will follow you hopefully and be open-minded to see you play other things and experience other stories you want to tell.

In high school I was on the youth advisory council for the Mayor's Office of Los Angeles and that was kind of my first experience in the bureaucratic system. We tried to get things done and nobody was really interested in getting anything done.

Men do weird things when they experience fear. It's like a fight-or-flight thing.

The things I was allowed to experience the people I was able to call friends teammates mentors coaches and opponents the travel all of it are far more than anything I ever thought possible in my lifetime.

Something happens to us all when we experience something as a unit that doesn't occur when we're on our couches or holding our little portable DVD players.

I need more raw experience. I've read and watched a lot of things but I haven't done a lot of things.

One nice thing about being a woman in Hollywood is that the women tend to be very close-knit. All of us writers and directors know each other and cling to each other for safety and support and it's really a completely different vibe than the men experience out here where they're all trying to murder each other.

You know it shouldn't just be about women as heroic figures overcoming things it just needs to be about women in general getting the opportunity to play a multitude of roles telling a multitude of stories - just to express human experience from a woman's perspective. I hope someday we can get to that point. I'm all about representation.

The first essential in writing about anything is that the writer should have no experience of the matter.

When I was 12 years old someone took me to see Martha Graham. It was nothing like what I thought of as serious dancing and even then I knew I was having a great experience. It was as if somebody was moving through space like no one ever did before.

When I look back at the tapes your first everything your first All-Star Game your first playoff experience it just seems like it went by really fast.

Experience is what you get while looking for something else.

There's nothing wrong with acknowledging the panoply of life's rich experience.

Well I think the main message is there is more to your story. There is more than what happens between the crib and the grave and that is what I am really trying to speak to this idea that all of life is this life and that there is nothing more than what we see and experience right here on this earth.

The wonderful thing about acting is you move along with your decade. The older you get the more interesting the parts you get to play and you bring more of your personal experience to the part.

The position that I take partly as a result of living in Asia is where you stop living according to your expectations and you become available to experience things as they are.

It's more fun to experience things when you don't know what's going to happen.

Living in a rural setting exposes you to so many marvelous things - the natural world and the particular texture of small-town life and the exhilarating experience of open space.

You may never learn the names of any of the people you talk to in a dog park even after many many hours spent there with them and many hours of conversation. But if - knock on wood - anything should ever happen to your dog these nameless non-strangers will rally sympathize offer to help and hold your hand. I know this from experience.

The more you are getting older you lose a little something. Of course there is another advantage because of your long experience you can use it.

In my experience lust only ever leads to misery. All that suspicion and jealousy and anguish it unleashes. I don't want those things in my life.

If someone is making a judgment when they don't have firsthand experience it's intolerant. How can you make a judgment on something you don't know about?

If we didn't want to upset anyone we would make films about sewing but even that could be dangerous. But I think finally in a film it is how the balance is and the feelings are. But I think there has to be those contrasts and strong things within a film for the total experience.