My reward in life for growing up a little bit was that Mary Steenburgen came into my life, and we have been together for 19 years.

You have to be an optimist, right? You have to be critical, then you have to be an optimist. Or else you're really stupid.

I don't think it's a matter of, do you win the game or not, it's how gracefully do you play it.

Years ago, we all talked about recycling and not dumping things down your drain and all of that, but talking doesn't help much. Basically, it's going to have to be legislation because the impact is so huge and diversified.

I think in terms of the parents that I had, I sort of drew a bad hand, or bad karma; who knows? And I did have a family that was complicated, with some quite eccentric members. So there was a lot of grist there.

My family is a Jewish Iranian family, but I was born in Turkey and raised in Italy. So it's a very mixed background.

I've always prided myself on being the lowest-profile member of the Bush family.

I'm having to learn to get the balance right, because if you want a full-time career, and you also want to be a mother who is there for your child, then you have to make sure that when you do spend time together, you're really there for them.