[On getting recognized by fans] “It always happens in places where you’d rather not be recognized. Like one time, I was just getting ready to go to bed, but I had this craving for a glass of milk. So I go to the supermarket, and I have like no makeup on, and this couple comes up to me and they’re like ‘Thursday night!’. They sort of yelled it across the vegetable bin, and I’m like, ‘Okay, don’t look at me, I look awful. I’m going over here by the celery now.’”

[About her "Gilmore Girls" (2000) audition] “It was very unexpected. I was nervous and didn’t know what I was doing. It just happened to work out”.

You hear all these great stories about kids starting their own businesses and getting involved in their communities and politics and foundations - all kinds of things. And it’s so much easier for kids to get motivated and do that. - on her belief that teens are motivated to effect change.

Last year, I was driving to work at 5.30 in the morning, and I ended up right next to a bus that had a huge picture of me on the side of it. They were all over L.A. but it was the first time I’d seen one. I don’t know if it was because it was so early or what, but that freaked me out.

[On talking about her relationship with Milo Ventimiglia]: “It’s your stuff, and if you share things that are too personal with a magazine or with your public, it’s sort of like it’s not really yours anymore, it’s shared information and it’s not special to you anymore. I don’t like that. I think people with personalities who like to talk about what’s going on in their lives, they’ll talk without really knowing how it’s going to come back and bite them, and generally, it does. And luckily, I have the kind of personality where I am extremely private. I don’t really like to tell everyone my business. I’d much rather people wonder or not know”.

“Well, I remember it was 5 in the morning. I’m leaving my house to go to the set of “Gilmore Girls” (2000). I’m really tired and just when I walk outside, a bus slowly goes down the street with my face on the side of it as Rory Gilmore. I thought, “Ewwww”. It’s so early. I just can’t stand seeing me”.

“Before I got “Gilmore Girls” (2000), I was modeling. I went in for a call and was told, “Sweetie, you need to lose two inches off those hips”. I was 14. So I just replied, “I have more jobs than I can do. I’m in high school. I can’t go to all the trouble of losing the two inches, so I’ll pass”. Someone might tell you to lose weight, but you can say no”.

“Sometimes I feel like I am an old person trapped in a young person’s body. I’m boring. I go to movies. I read. That’s about it.”

“The success of the show is overwhelming. It’s like being Alice at the Mad Hatter’s tea party because you never know what’s going to happen next.”

“I was at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts for a year and I loved it. There are a lot of really creative people, there is a constant exchange of an ideas. We talk about what’s been done [in film] and all the rules for filmmaking and then we talk about how to break them.”

“For some unknown reason, bad-boys draw you in despite the fact that they are jerks.”

When I was modeling as a teenager… I just ignored it when people said to lose two inches off my hips. I had more jobs than I could take. So why would I even want more?