I spent every night until four in the morning on my dissertation until I came to the point when I could not write another word not even the next letter. I went to bed. Eight o'clock the next morning I was up writing again.

On the last morning of Virginia's bloodiest year since the Civil War I built a fire and sat facing a window of darkness where at sunrise I knew I would find the sea.

But to the slave mother New Year's day comes laden with peculiar sorrows. She sits on her cold cabin floor watching the children who may all be torn from her the next morning and often does she wish that she and they might die before the day dawns.

I don't go to Mass every day. But I go to church every day. Just sitting there thinking - it's a great way to start the morning you know? You feel so good coming out and your approach to everything is suddenly really clear.

In West Virginia the most vulnerable people we have are people who get up every morning and go to work.

It seems to me madness to wake up in the morning and do something other than paint considering that one may not wake up the following morning.

I still love doing what I do and I'm really lucky to get up in the morning and want to go to work.

The episodes all blend together for me so I don't remember. I can't even remember what I had for breakfast this morning. I always feel I must be such a disappointment to them.

Those golden minutes before you are completely awake when your mind is just drifting you have no censorship you are ready to develop any kind of idea. That's when I come up with the best and worst ideas. That is the privilege of being a writer - that you can stay in bed for an hour in the morning and it's work time.

The thing with me is if I wake up one morning and I'm not happy working as an actress I'll stop. It's not something I have to do. It's not a vocation.