I really appreciate the everyday stuff as far as material.

I think what happens is that some writers, who are so great in television or whatever, once they become successful, they get out of the loop of real life. It's real hard to draw on something to write.

Barry Levinson saw me on a tape and put me in 'Rain Man' as the waitress who dropped the toothpicks. The scene was talked about a lot. Then, all of a sudden, I started to get more auditions.

What kind of woman irons her husband's sheets? Even the clothes I wear, I just throw 'em in the dryer with some golf balls.

If you can maintain your standards and your integrity and you fail, it's OK. It's when you sell out and you fail that you feel pretty sick inside.

I love talking to people and finding out their opinion.

To have children on the set, you realize that if a 10-year-old can do it, who are you kidding? It humbles you.

Because I've been so blessed with a background in nursing and spent so much time with patients at a really intimate, vulnerable time in their lives, the one lesson I've learned is that you never turn down a challenge where you can keep your creative integrity and your heart and soul and your sense of self.

I loved when my folks would watch 'The Dean Martin Show.'

I think you have to see the high highs and the low lows to get to the core of what makes us tick as people.

Over the years, if you look at the films of people like Billy Wilder, Preston Sturges, Frank Capra, their supporting characters, even if it's a doorman with two lines, always seem three-dimensional. To me, that's a sign of good storytelling.

When you're the mom in a big family comedy, you have to get your personality when you can.

If an executive producer has written a certain line, and an actress says it, and it's not very funny, you don't dare go to them and say, 'I don't like this,' because it will make your life miserable.

I don't have the fear of my looks changing.

I don't have the fear I won't be able to think of something else to write. It's what I do.

My only power is my ability to do something with passion and do it well. It's also something someone cannot take way from me, so it's very valuable.

I was very down as a teenager, very upset because I had gotten hurt in a car accident. But my dad was a source of strength. He used to say, 'It's the character with strength that God gives the most challenges to.' I've thought about that so many times in my life when things didn't go right.

My dad was a man of great wisdom in his short time here.

I'm a blue-collar Chicago girl raised on wonderful movies my mom took us to, ones that had a lot of heart.

When you're an actress, you are a part of the storytelling process. You have to do the same thing when you direct.

Not only do people stop me on the street to say, 'We're walking, we're walking', but I have actually been in restaurants where the hostess was saying it to customers.

There's nothing funnier than religion. Try explaining it to a kid. I had it all wrong when I was a kid.

I'm from an Irish Catholic family.

There were seven kids in our family. My mom had seven kids in 10 years. So you had to learn how to talk and think fast if you wanted to be heard.