"Why does a woman work ten years to change a man, then complain he's not the man she married?"

"I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy, and driven."

"How I wish we lived in a time when laws were not necessary to safeguard us from discrimination."

"I'm sure that I don't know everything I want to know. I have so much more to learn."

"You have got to discover you, what you do, and trust it."

"Doubt can motivate you, so don't be afraid of it. Confidence and doubt are at two ends of the scale, and you need both. They balance each other out."

"I guess if you have an original take on life, or something about you is original, you don't have to study people who came before you. You don't have to mimic anybody. You just have a gut feeling inside, an instinct that tells you what's right for you, and you can't do it in any other way."

"I like simple things. Elastic waists, so I can eat."

"I wish I could be like Shaw who once read a bad review of one of his plays, called the critic and said: 'I have your review in front of me and soon it will be behind me.'"

"Oh God, don't envy me, I have my own pains."

"I've been called many names like perfectionist, difficult and obsessive. I think it takes obsession, takes searching for the details for any artist to be good."

"I just became a singer, because I could never get work as an actress."

"I'm a work in progress."

"The audience is the barometer of the truth."

"It always gave me the creeps when I saw performers who desperately wanted the audience to like them. That's not what I'm about."

"I find George Bush and Dick Cheney frightening, Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft frightening."

"I was a personality before I became a person - I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy and driven."

"What is exciting is not for one person to be stronger than the other... but for two people to have met their match and yet they are equally as stubborn, as obstinate, as passionate, as crazy as the other."

"We have a president who stole the presidency through family ties, arrogance and intimidation, employing Republican operatives to exercise the tactics of voter fraud by disenfranchising thousands of blacks, elderly Jews and other minorities."

"I can take any truth; just don't lie to me."

"A man who graduated high in his class at Yale Law School and made partnership in a top law firm would be celebrated. A man who invested wisely would be admired, but a woman who accomplishes this is treated with suspicion."

"To have ego means to believe in your own strength. And to also be open to other people's views. It is to be open, not closed. So, yes, my ego is big, but it's also very small in some areas. My ego is responsible for my doing what I do - bad or good."

"I arrived in Hollywood without having my nose fixed, my teeth capped, or my name changed. That is very gratifying to me."

"There's a part of you that always remains a child, no matter how mature you get, how sophisticated or weary."

"There is nothing more important in life than love."

"I love things that are indescribable, like the taste of an avocado or the smell of a gardenia."

"I don't care what you say about me. Just be sure to spell my name wrong."

"I knew that with a mouth like mine, I just hadda be a star or something."

"Nobody on this earth has the right to tell anyone that their love for another human being is morally wrong."

"I love road trips! My husband and I love that. We bought a truck with a bench seat so we could put the dog in the middle."

"My biggest nightmare is I'm driving home and get sick and go to hospital. I say: 'Please help me.' And the people say: 'Hey, you look like...' And I'm dying while they're wondering whether I'm Barbra Streisand."

"I only began to sing because I couldn't get a job as an actress."

"I must have got my detailed, obsessive streak from my father, who was an English teacher, because my mother wasn't like me at all."

"The audience is the best judge of anything. They cannot be lied to. Truth brings them closer. A moment that lags - they're gonna cough."

"It is every woman's dream to be some man's dream woman."

"I hated singing. I wanted to be an actress. But I don't think I'd have made it any other way."

"What does it mean when people applaud? Should I give 'em money? Say thank you? Lift my dress? The lack of applause - that I can respond to."

"When I was maybe 5 or 6 years old, the neighborhood girls would sit on the stoop and sing. I was known as the kid who had a good voice and no father."

"I think when I was younger, I wanted to be a star, until I became a star, and then it's a lot of work. It's work to be a star. I don't enjoy the stardom part. I only enjoy the creative process."

"I think of myself as a girl from Brooklyn."

"I remember when I was 5 living on Pulaski Street in Brooklyn, the hallway of our building had a brass banister and a great sound, a great echo system. I used to sing in the hallway."

"They're called 'angels' because they're in heaven until the reviews come out."

"Around people I don't know, I'm totally at a loss."

"Success to me is having ten honeydew melons and eating only the top half of each slice."

"I don't enjoy public performances and being up on a stage. I don't enjoy the glamour. Like tonight, I am up on stage and my feet hurt."

"I always wear the same thing at home. I can't be bothered with jewelry. My pants have elastic waists. I like to be comfortable. There are so many more important things to worry about."

"If I hear a record once, I usually never listen to it again. I rarely listen to music - unless it's Billie Holiday."

"Sometimes you resent the people you love and need the most. Love is so fascinating in all its forms, and I think everyone who has ever been a mother will relate to this."

"I don't like talking about myself and I don't like talking about the work."

"On a very basic level, many people think celebrities have too much already, so we shouldn't be entitled to our political opinions."