I think that there are a lot of really beautiful Christmas carols, and then sometimes there are horrible renditions of them that are played to death in malls that make me sad. I try to avoid stores where they're playing bad versions of Christmas songs on repeat.

A friend of mine wrote a script, a feminist romantic comedy. She had a feminist scholar consult on it. My friend said, 'Oh, my friend Gillian read it and really loved it.' She goes, 'Gillian Jacobs, you mean: Britta Perry, feminist icon?'

As opposed to trying to make a kiss look romantic or sweet or passionate, it's kind of fun to just have the freedom to make it look weird, goofy and awkward.

I used to like to make myself sad, so I would listen to Bill Callahan as Smog.

'Dancing on My Own' is actually a really sad song! It has totally made me cry.

Nobody knows what the future is except for wizards.

I think maybe my mom thought that Katharine Hepburn would be a good role model of, like, a strong, smart, independent woman. Maybe she steered me in that direction. You know, because she was really so ahead of her time.

It's funny shooting movies because you get to see clubs during daylight hours, which no one should ever see - it's not pretty; there's a reason the lighting is dim in there.

For me, I really love 'Tim and Eric' and 'Dr. Steve Brule' and a lot of the Adult Swim shows, so I like strange, weird, sometimes slightly upsetting humor.

Famous doesn't mean anything. Just because people know my face doesn't mean they know us or that it makes us any more interesting or better.

Somebody ripped their pants open at my wedding, dipping my mother. My mother is not a lady who throws herself into a dip that often, so I don't think he thought she was really going to do it.

I believe it matters how you treat people. I believe in Heaven. I don't believe that this is it, and then we're done. I have a lovely relationship with God, although when I've lost someone or I've seen a sick child, I've had conversations with Him in which I've had to ask, 'How can that be right?'

There are a lot of funny women in my life. I never understand those movies where there's eight funny guys and two women who don't have any opinion or humour.

I will embarrass my kids to their core. I will threaten to show up in hot pants and a tube top. Their dad will drive me. And he'll let me and my friend Lisa get pretty drunk in the backseat, and we will come into that party and just rip it up.

I lived for 15 years in Los Angeles, and I still can't believe that the handsomest man in the world, Cary Grant, and the greatest performer in the world, Fred Astaire, and Johnny Carson, one after another - they were all in my home at different times. I celebrated my 50th birthday with them. Unforgettable.

Sinatra invited me once to his birthday party in L.A. I was young, and I felt great about it. But when I got there, the Rat Pack were all in the kitchen laughing their heads off.

Performers should really go to the best schools, like Lady Gaga, you know, she went to NYU and had great teachers... It's best to really study your technique as much as you possibly can so you can have a long career instead of a quick one that's a failure.

I loved my mom so much because she had to work on a penny just to put food on the table... During the Depression in the United States, everybody had a tough time. And I was so hurt because she was crying that she didn't have any food for us for Thanksgiving.

No matter what age you are, there's a lot of room for learning.

I get up, and boy, I can't wait to paint and study music and keep learning. I just love it.

I have grown to appreciate the power of believing in myself and of always having faith in myself. I rarely look back; instead, I always look forward. There is so much of life that we miss when we wallow in regret.

I celebrate Christmas with wilful glee.

You can separate the church and state all you like, but Christmas is inescapable, and it's marvellous, and it's not going away.

No matter how excluded you have become from Christmas, it is a genuinely inclusive matter; frankly, you are conscripted into it.

Perhaps the people of Twitter are more amenable to your babbling than your immediate family, but that doesn't necessarily make digital communication a beneficial distraction when we have an immediate social environment.

Fitness is really important for my mental and emotional equilibrium as well as my physical wellbeing.

I didn't get into fitness until my late twenties. I had put on a lot of weight; I was quite chubby and feeling really depressed. But exercise helped everything - the body and the mind.

If you are concerned you are the victim of illegal corporate surveillance, you should seek specialist - and independent - legal advice at once.

My father is a taxi driver, and my mother ran a small business. I hadn't even met a barrister before I got my first shot at the legal profession. But back then, I was lucky enough to be given a break - I can't help but wonder if I would be so lucky today.

Never trust people; always trust paper. I'd marry a piece of paper if I could.

I was an appalling person to teach. At 14, I was pretty advanced. I would read all the books in a few minutes, and I was bored. It must have been awful for a teacher to have a bright boy who's giving them his undivided indifference.

Learning about crime in great detail forces us to ask ourselves how it happened, how the victims and perpetrators got to that point, how the law works, how the police force functions.

I'm not as conscious as I should be about my diet and eating a healthy balance of fruit and vegetables because I do so much exercise. However, I love good grilled fish and Mediterranean/Middle-Eastern salads.

I'm a summer baby, so I usually have my birthday as a good summer memory.

Brits and Americans have hundreds of different phrases for the same thing. Luckily, it's usually a source of amusement rather than frustration. A flashlight by any other name is still a torch. My personal favourite is 'fairy lights,' which we boringly refer to as 'Christmas lights.'

The Queen of Crafts herself, Martha Stewart, and I have the same birthday. I prefer to think it's the glue-gun wielding, perfect-tart-producing Martha and not the copper pan-throwing, jail-going Martha. But I suppose if I am going to share a calendar square with some of Martha, I have to share it with all of Martha.

Since graduation, I have measured time in 4-by-5-inch pieces of paper, four days on the left and three on the right. Every social engagement, interview, reading, flight, doctor's appointment, birthday and dry-cleaning reminder has been handwritten between metal loops.

The year most of my high school friends and I got our driver's permits, the coolest thing one could do was stand outside after school and twirl one's car keys like a lifeguard whistle. That jingling sound meant freedom and power.

Are there moments when I see unrequited crushes or ex-boyfriends slow dancing with their dates and kind of want to stab myself in the spleen with a salad fork? Yeah, sure.

Alaska is what happens when Willy Wonka and the witch from Hansel and Gretel elope, buy a place together upstate, renounce their sweet teeth, and turn into health fanatics.

There's already a marriage clock, a career clock, a biological clock. Sometimes being a woman feels like standing in the lobby of a hotel, looking at the dials depicting every time zone in the world behind the front desk - except they all apply to you, and all at once.

I think a lot of humor is about distracting yourself. Pretend you're not trying to make it funny. Because for some reason the effort to be funny smells like sulphur in our culture.

A pet store is a celebration of dogs' existence and an explosion of options. About cats, a pet store seems to say, 'Here, we couldn't think of anything else.' Cats are the Hanukkah of the animal world in this way. They are feted quietly and happily by a minority, but there's only so much hoopla applicable to them.

It's funny. People often compare me to other humor essayists. They're usually quite nice comparisons; I will accept those gladly. But I am always sort of appalled at the idea of being lumped with other, more chick-y female writers. And the truth is probably that neither comparison is accurate.

When we set up our kids for failure, we set up our workforce for failure, and we set up our economy for failure. I can't emphasize enough the importance, the absolute importance, of education in achieving long-term economic growth.

During my administration, we've welcomed a broad and diverse group of industries to New Mexico, including high-tech and traditional manufacturing, health care, information technology and finance. Some are homegrown New Mexico companies; others are global leaders in their industries.

Experience has taught me that privacy truly is the touchstone of our criminal justice system.

As the first Hispanic female governor in history, little girls often come up to me in the grocery store or the mall. They look and point, and when they get the courage, they ask 'Are you Susana?' and they run up and give me a hug.

In many ways, Mitt Romney and I are very different. Different starts in life. Different paths to leadership. Different cultures.

Success, they taught me, is built on the foundation of courage, hard-work and individual responsibility. Despite what some would have us believe, success is not built on resentment and fears.