Maggie Gyllenhaal

I like clothes. And I think it's OK to think about clothes just so long as you also think about other things. I'm not interested in clothes to the point where they'll push other things out of my mind; I just see them as a way of expressing yourself, and a pleasure, really.

I want to have some effect on the way the world works in whatever way I can, and I also want to have the power to help get the movies that I think are important made.

Yes, I want to do good work. But just because a movie is small, it doesn't make it better. In fact, there are a lot of really horrible independent movies made.

I studied English literature; I took 2 independent religion classes, but I wasn't a religion major really.

Who can I trust? You have to invest in somebody and chances are you're probably going to invest in somebody who's going to deceive you. I've been conned a couple of times, but now I'm a little more savvy.

I feel so gratified about having finished college. I learned how to articulate myself. It gave me confidence more than anything. And also the ability to analyze the text.

When you are in every scene of a movie - which I must say I really much prefer - you have more control over the film that you're making. Because the choices you make as an actor can't help but change what the movie is saying.

Having an education is invaluable.

I'm not interested in showing the wish of what it looks like to be human. I'm interested in showing what it actually looks like.

So many people are willing to sleepwalk through things and fall into the not human, not interesting choice. To make the really interesting choice, you have to fight.

For a long time, I bought into the idea that if you are a woman who is a storyteller and a lover of movies, then the best way to express that is as an actress. Obviously, there are women my age who are directors who didn't buy into that idea, but I did - and now I've broken that down inside myself.

I made a movie where I played a girl that just got out of prison and we shot it very very quickly but very intensely-that took me a long time to get over.