I love working with a cast and a group of people every day which is different than recording because you're usually pretty isolated and alone. They serve as a good balance for each other.

In my cranky old age I actually prefer recording alone now on 'The Simpsons ' for example because I find that the director can just focus on what I'm doing and I can do a lot of variations. A lot of times when I record with a group I'll stay after class for another hour or two.

Look the center right coalition in American politics today is best understood as a coalition of groups and individuals that on the issue that brings them to politics what they want from the government is to be left alone.

The best part about being with a group is that you don't have to do everything alone. You're with your friends.

There's a tremendous difference between alone and lonely. You could be lonely in a group of people. I like being alone. I like eating by myself. I go home at night and just watch a movie or hang out with my dog. I have to exert myself and really say oh God I've got to see my friends 'cause I'm too content being by myself.

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone alone in patches alone in groups alone in races even alone in genders.

You hit a certain age and - especially because of TV - the young cooks coming up say 'You're a sellout because you're doing something other than what you should be doing.' 'Top Chef' is a double-edged sword for me: There's a whole group of people who will not come to the restaurants because they assume I'm not in them anymore all I do is TV.

There's a very small group of elite actresses who are my age who people want to work with. It's not easy to get a good job with good actors.

Children under five are the poorest age group in America and one in four infants toddlers and preschoolers are poor during the years of greatest brain development.

I basically get stereotyped a lot in terms of being a girl and writing 'chick' music for teenage girls or something. I think if anything the press kind of because of my gender and my age tends to kind of relegate my work to this sort of special-interest group. It's part of the cultural dynamic I guess.

I remember at the age of five travelling on a trolley car with my mother past a group of women on a picket line at a textile plant seeing them being viciously beaten by security people. So that kind of thing stayed with me.