"The connection was so bad, and I couldn’t talk at all during most of the call. How terrible it is when you say I love you and the person at the other end shouts back ‘What?"

"That killed me."

"You can't stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it."

"Give me an honest con man any day."

"People never think anything is anything really. I'm getting goddam sick of it."

"You only have one life and if you're not doing what you love, what's the point?"

"My relaxation has always been my animals - going to the dog park with them, going to the beach."

"Few people know this about me, but I love baking pies."

"I can remember crying on the set of Beverly Hills 90210 after being released from the show a few years ago."

"I don't know what I did in this life to deserve all of this. I'm just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream."

"I grew up in a trailer park in Bellingham, Washington."

"The truth is, after Boys Don't Cry, I realized how few and far between the great roles are. I am beyond thankful for finding Million Dollar Baby."

"I had to fight my whole life to break out of my circumstances. That's just part of my makeup."

"I really chase the things that I want."

"Growing up in a lower-income family, you don't have the resources to make ends meet and you have to find creative ways to get by."

"'Oh, the Places You'll Go!,' by Dr. Seuss, is still one of my favorite books ever."

"I like to play women who blaze trails."

"It's a quality of my life that I wouldn't change for the world, having grown up with such a humble background."

"One of the great things about my job is I get to do all of these things that I may not experience had I not been an actor."

"My job is about playing people. And I think once you lose touch with people, what do you play?"

"My biggest growth has been sitting with things that are uncomfortable and dealing with them."

"I believe that the definition of luck is when preparation meets with opportunity."

"You can change your fate. You can sit back, or you can go after your life and all that you want it to be."

"I don't think people should have boundaries put on them, by themselves or society or another gender, because it's our birthright to experience life in whatever way we feel best suits us."