It's quite a famous story that takes place on Christmas Eve, and the Germans, French, and Scottish are trying to make peace one night and they bury their dead and they play football. I play a German opera singer, in German, which I never have so I am really excited about that.

I'm not a very good impersonator, my friends maybe, but not famous people.

I am a better person when I let myself have the time for romance and for love.

I don't have any romantic ideas about marriage. Trust me. A white dress... ? No. It's not something for me.

When I was younger - it might be a romantic idea - I always thought I might go crazy.

What I really tried to do with Helen was make her show this sad side of her. She was married off at 16, was so young and living in this castle that can't leave because of how she looks, and married to a man she hates and three times her age.

I play a curator, the most American part you can think of. My work is to protect the Declaration of Independence. I work at the National Archives in Washington.

With modeling, you pose. You want to look your best all the time. With acting, you have to be aware of the camera, but the more you show your imperfections, the better you're going to be.

I don't want to let my life as a woman pass me by. There's a time to work, there's a time to be young and crazy, and there should be a time to enjoy motherhood. I'm actually looking forward to that.

Critics can be harsh and I think it's going to take me a long time to make people see what I have inside of me and that I really put my guts into movies and that I'm not superficial and that I'm not just a pretty face.

Yeah, to me, acting is very therapeutic. I get out a lot of anger and frustration.

There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain.

Painting is a nail to which I fasten my ideas.

Art is made to disturb, science reassures.

Reality only reveals itself when it is illuminated by a ray of poetry.

Truth exists; only lies are invented.

This is the merit and distinction of art: to be more real than reality, to be not nature but nature's essence.

Now, to read poetry at all is to have an ideal anthology of one's own, and in that possession to be incapable of content with the anthologies of all the world besides.

In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud: Under the bludgeoning of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed.

That's what all art's about - a sense of moving away from boundaries that you can't in real life. Like a dancer is always trying to fly, really - to do something that's just not possible. But you try to do as much as you can within those physical boundaries.

I do have the odd dream where I'm on stage and I've completely forgotten what I'm meant to be performing - so they are more nightmares than dreams.

But I don't have a very good track record with royalty. My dress fell off in front of Prince Charles at the Prince's Trust, so I'm just living up to my reputation.

If you believe in what you do and you really want to be in music, just stick at it. It's always a learning process. Enjoy it because I think making music is a privilege, really. In an ideal world, it should also always be fun. As much as possible, make it fun.

I had an incredibly full life with my imagination: I used to have all sorts of trolls and things; I had a wonderful world around my toys and invented people. I don't mean I had imaginary friends; I just had this big imagination thing going on. I didn't need any imaginary friends, because I had so much other stuff going on.

Filmmaking is a huge privilege; it's not brain surgery. It's art, and art is supposed to be an enjoyable process, and it is an enjoyable experience for me.

The only thing I liked about Christmas as a kid was the gifts; otherwise, it just seemed like a stressful time.

What I think is sad about the rom-com genre is that it has adopted this pejorative title. I think the reason why there haven't been as many great ones is because we are fighting against the genre itself. If it is a romantic comedy then snuggle up to the fact that it can be a really earnest, refreshing feeling to feel good after a movie.

You have to keep hobbies in L.A. Otherwise, it's sad.

While marriage is historically associated with dire obligation and clipped wings, I've found that it actually liberates you to take on adventure and achieve your dreams. I like to call my husband 'my person.' Find your 'person,' and you can do anything!

'In A World...' changed my life a thousand per cent. I feel thankful that something I believed in so much - I love dialect, so I dedicated five years of my life to making a film about it - yielded such rewards. It led to 'Man Up,' as well as 'No Escape,' which comes out later this year... two movies where I am the female lead.

My mom is incredibly stylish, and she gets it from my grandmother. I feel like I can't live up to how chic they are as women. They are great role models for aging gracefully, and that's a thing that is very key that I try to always emulate.

I never know what I'm going to put on the canvas. The canvas paints itself. I'm just the middleman.

Every time a student walks past a really urgent, expressive piece of architecture that belongs to his college, it can help reassure him that he does have that mind, does have that soul.

Design is not making beauty, beauty emerges from selection, affinities, integration, love.

Architecture is the reaching out for the truth.

Architecture is the thoughtful making of space.

The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode.

Conviction without experience makes for harshness.

There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

I preach there are all kinds of truth, your truth and somebody else's. But behind all of them there is only one truth and that is that there's no truth.

I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.

Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not.

I will preach with my brush.

I decided on the spot that I would be an artist, and I assure you, it was no ordinary artist I had in mind.

It seemed to me that this might be a great pageant, which would give a chance for a very interesting picture.

Many of the artists who have represented Negro life have seen only the comic, ludicrous side of it, and have lacked sympathy with and appreciation for the warm big heart that dwells within such a rough exterior.

Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.

Love is the word used to label the sexual excitement of the young, the habituation of the middle-aged, and the mutual dependence of the old.

It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their convictions. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the courage of their confusions.