It's surprising to me how many of my friends send Christmas cards or holiday cards including my atheist and secular friends.

These days I'm mostly familiar with two parts of L.A.: one is movie culture and the other is Asian culture. The Westside is work and the Eastside is Chinese - which means my friends.

It's definitely a dream come true to be recognized and to be able to sign autographs. But it's also a lot of hard work and can be draining. If you don't know already you will quickly learn who your real friends are.

No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not work those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself.

I am the woman I grew to be partly in spite of my mother and partly because of the extraordinary love of her best friends and my own best friends' mothers and from surrogates many of whom were not women at all but gay men. I have loved them my entire life even after their passing.

All my friends' mothers were appalling women.

I think all women have a friend who at some point dumped them or betrayed them or deeply disappointed them. And at the same time all women have a friend who they dumped or betrayed or hurt in some way. That's universal in women's friendships.

Women can go on marrying and pretending that their boyfriends and husbands are Mr. Darcy or some RomCom dream man. But where's that going to get 'em? Besides divorce court?

I think women are really good at making friends and not good at networking. Men are good at networking and not necessarily making friends. That's a gross generalization but I think it holds in many ways.

The only people you can really share certain things with in secret are your girlfriends.