I'm just kind of fascinated by how we can deny that we are animals and what our impact on the other animals is like, and how quixotic we can be in trying to assess what we've done in trying to correct it.

I think, if I'm doing my job correctly, I'm presenting a scenario for you as the reader to engage with on your own. I mean, that's what the best art is supposed to do. It's not supposed to be political. I think if you read all my books, you know where I stand, pretty much.

I think that's what art is about: to provoke you. It helps me make sense of a senseless universe because I become the god of the story. I create it, and I see it in all its lineaments in my own way and can control it - in a world in which everything else is out of control.

I think the best endings bring you back in rather than close things off with absolute finality. I'm not saying they necessarily have to be ambiguous, but we don't always need to know what happens when everyone wakes up tomorrow morning.

It might sound glib, but in a sense, as an actor I'm a journalist and a psychologist recording life and truth.

I went to college and law school with the help of the GI Bill. That experience moved me so much, I dedicated the rest of my life to serving this great country and helping others succeed.

As an actress who has performed in theater for over 17 years, my experience performing in 'The Color Purple' has been a truly life-changing journey.

To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.