I was a philosophy major as an undergraduate, and I'm just an arrogant little thing. It's hard for me to admit that I can't understand something, let alone not be in charge of it.

Success has affected my self-definition in that I have more money. Writers pooh-pooh that idea, but it's a huge deal.

I think being tortured as a virtue is a kind of antiquated sense of what it is to be an artist. It comes out of that Symbolist idea, back to Rimbaud and all that disordering of the senses and all of that being some exalted state. When I've been that way, I've always been less exalted than I would have liked.

Having a great dad probably permitted me to pal around with guys in a way that some women don't.

When I was first pitched the show, I was like, 'Oh, God, a soapy show called 'Mistresses.'' But it wasn't that at all. It wasn't a bunch of women pulling guns on each other and stabbing each other in the back. We really have a core friendship.

People talk about grief as if it's kind of an unremittingly awful thing, and it is. It is painful, but it's a very, very interesting sort of thing to go through, and it really helps you out. At the end of the day, it gets you through because you have to reform your relationship, and you have to figure out a way of getting to the future.

I'm grateful that on a lot of casts I've gained friends for life. But it's more of a rare thing than a normal thing. I have a small group of friends, and I just, uh, feel fulfilled by the people that are in my life.

The Strokes, you bond when you're 18, and you're friends. The feeling's different. When all of us get into a room, we feel like the same people from before. We weren't anybody; we were just hanging out. It's hard to understand if you're not in a band. You're one-fifth.