SHELLEY DUVALL

There's nothing that can beat the feeling of doing a movie or a TV show that makes everyone feel good.

When I'd finished, everybody said they wanted me for this movie. At first I thought they meant a nudie flick since an awful lot of nudies are made in Houston.

Acting in films hasn't changed me. I feel exactly the same.

For a while we lived in a tent we'd pitched inside his parents' house and we slept on pillows.

I like to pick my own vegetables.

And of course, now that Bernard and I have found each other forever, we're determined to create our own little world in order to survive the one we're in.

Take events in your life seriously, take work seriously, but don't take yourself seriously, or you'll become affected, pompous and boring.

We live from day to day and get as much joy out of experiencing as we can.

I was traveling in Europe with Paul and suddenly realized my passport still said I was Mrs. Sampson.

I'm one of those people who thinks you can have a happy life and still be an artist.

Somewhere along the line, Bob said I'd better begin taking this business seriously, because, whether I liked it or not, I had a career.

But I never let a fantasy get away, because I always stop to analyze it.

Bernard and I intend doing a lot with our lives and that includes actively helping other people. But how can we tell you our plans when we haven't finished making them yet?

I felt little awkward about taking one boyfriend to see a film starring another boyfriend.

Two months later at a party, Bernard pulled me into a closet and proposed. I said yes.

You think he's going to like you better, but then one day you look in the mirror and realize you've changed yourself - physically and emotionally - into a woman who's totally different from the one he was attracted to the first place.

You don't direct ostriches, you herd them.

In Houston everyone owns guns and uses 'em - sometimes just for the hell of it.

I suppose I learned organization from Altman.

Making it big in this world is such a rip-off, you gotta keep your head together or it can be totally without meaning.

Having been an actress before becoming a producer has helped, because I realize the needs.

In school the kids thought I was freaky because I made straight A's and daydreamed a lot.

I don't know if I was a desirable person, not just physically but emotionally and mentally and intellectually. I still have a long way go and a lot to learn, but I'm on my way, I don't think I'm terribly attractive, but I'm comfortable with my looks.

But most of what I've learned about acting - and a lot of what I've learned about life in the past seven years - was taught to me by Robert Altman.

Pigs are not that dirty. And they're smart, strange little creatures. They just need love.