Brit Marling

"I get uncomfortable when people give me presents and watch me open them. I don't have birthday parties, because the idea of a group of people singing and looking at me while I'm blowing out candles gives me hives."

"Here's the thing that I think about life - if you manage to get into a space where you don't need that much, where the overhead of your life is not that great and you're pretty happy and relaxed without that much stuff, you are really liberated because you never have to say yes to something because you want another refrigerator or car!"

"I feel like I'm a much better person when I'm developing my imagination and my innocence and my vulnerability. I like that version of me better than the version where I'm just working on my analytical mind."

"As an actor, you have an accumulated knowledge base. But there's also something about it that every time you really feel like you're doing it for the first time you have no idea whether you're capable of it."

"I've found myself at one in the morning just sitting at my desk spending an hour returning emails from the day until like two in the morning. It's ridiculous, I should be sleeping, or dreaming, or reading a novel."

"A lot of people think, 'I'll give acting or poetry or filmmaking a try. And if it doesn't work out I'll go get a law degree, do something else that's more practical.' For me I went the reverse way. I lived the back-up plan."