""And I am really comfortable in this world. I love acting. I love the entertainment business... I wouldn"t trade it for anything."

"Crush-wise, Orlando Bloom, you could throw in a little Colin Farrell in there and Johnny Depp." - Michelle on actors she"d love and would be only willing to work with."

"I love gardening. I think it"s very therapeutic when you"re having a bad day."

[on the future of Buffy] "I"m sure that in some way, shape or form "Buffy" will be continued or the story, through the fans, because we do have such devoted fans and that"s always been very sweet".

"I can"t even deal ... with how much I love clothes."

"I love dancing. I said, Very little singing and a whole lot of dancing."

"I"m so serious. There are so many takes of me saying, "Oh, my god!" I would do that so often." (narrating Truth or Scare).

"But my last day, my last shot, was of me fighting."

"The day after, I saw Sarah Michelle Gellar. She got me fabulous clothes. Then she said, "Now that you"re legal, don"t go steal a car because you"ll be tried as an adult."

"Oh yeah, I am a really huge fan! I"m like Little Miss Buffy encyclopedia."

"They"re (Harry Potter) all just very creative. I think that J.K. Rowling has an incredible imagination, and I would love to just meet her one day to just pick away at her creative mind, see what"s there."

Interviewer: "Will you keep in touch with everyone?"
Michelle: "Definitely--we all exchanged cell-phone numbers. Sarah has always been like a sister to me."

"You never know. In the future, hey, I can be directing the last Harry Potter movies. I"ll be like, Wave your wand a little higher."

"You know what? I love the episodes where you get all these like crazy people trying out. Cause you got to give it to them man, they"ve got some confidence, they really think their good and hey that"s great."

"They gave me respect as a girl. I think it’s because I wore my stilettos to rehearsal and said that they were my casual shoes and they were like whoa. Come on now, you have to give it up for the shoes!"

"I wasn"t proud of my singing abilities. I shouldn"t have to be forced to sing, but apparently, I can carry a tune, so I"ll go with that."

""I can’t resist buying shoes, bags, and lip gloss. I can never leave a shopping experience without one of those."

"It is the coolest thing! My story line is a complete spoof, and not what Six Feet Under normally has. I"m really happy to be the girl that they wanted to spoof it up with."

"I’m so honored that he called me. I had coffee with Gregg (Araki) and he said I think you would be wonderful for this role."

"But I have always been the girl. I think it is because I wear the stiletto shoes and the pointy heels and the tighter jeans. I don"t think guys can get into stilettos and low riders. Or they shouldn"t anyway."

"I"m doing a lot of my own skating, but the triple axles, I"m obviously not required to do, because that takes years of training."

"I want to go back to movies. Working on Buffy was really, really fun and an amazing opportunity for me because… erm, let me catch my breath for a minute."

"We were all there because we loved the script and wanted so much to put it on film."

"The coolest part was in one of the episodes, my character goes on the Ellen show, so Ellen and I did this whole like improv routine where I"m talking about my character. That was really cool. I got to do a whole little fun thing. Ellen"s an awesome, awesome lady."

"The only tantrum I have ever thrown was when I watched an annoying girl doing a Barbie commercial on TV, and I screamed Mommy, I can do that better!"

"I"ve gotten many, many injuries! I"m black and blue everywhere; I"ve fallen... torn ligaments in my ankles. No one can say I haven"t suffered for my art!"

"Celeste is a combination of all the rumors you"ve ever heard about Britney, Christina and J. Lo all rolled into one. She"s just a bitchy little diva!"

"I play Joe"s best friend. I am the only one he has ever been able to trust in his life, so I help him understand what happened to him when he was younger."

"I"m like, great, I get to be all covered up now. Nooooo skating skirts are, like, up and flippy!"

"What makes it so beautiful is that you don’t need to be anything but heartfelt and that is the most important thing that I wanted to bring to my character…"

"So what’s on-screen is real emotion... even if you haven"t experienced pain in your life, these characters have. And to me, every character I play is a real person."

"I"m lucky to have found my passion so early in life. Acting is something I want to do forever."

"Buffy"s certainly presented many challenges to myself. That"s why I have been happy to be around as long as I have.

"That's a big, big number for me,'' Trachtenberg admits. "It's my last year being a teenager. The day I turn 20 will be the same day that, 10 years ago, we started principal photography on Harriet the Spy. That's a lifetime already. I have 10 years in SAG before some people who are 35 years old"

"It's really interesting,'' the young actress says. "I've never known anything career-wise other than acting, and that's always been my choice. I think the reason I've been able to have some longevity and not been splattered across US Weekly is my mom, mostly. She's quite a prominent force in my life, and we're very, very close. I'm so grateful to her because, when I was three years old, she said, `I'm going to let my daughter follow her dreams.'"

"When I started to book a lot of commercials, which was when I was about five years old, she realised something was really happening here,'' Trachtenberg says. ``But she never let me skip out on my education, and I've always kept that in mind. I finished school and graduated magna cum laude. Now that I'm an adult, I can focus more on my career."

"I love this business too much to let it go to my head,'' she adds. ``When I was in high school, I'd walk through the halls and the dumb little jocks would be like, `Harriet! Harriet!' I'd turn around and say, `You guys are really stupid. You think by taunting me you'll make me cry? Obviously, if you're calling me Harriet, you've seen the movie. So who looks silly now?'''

"It dropped into my lap, and I thought it was a really good, inspiring story,'' she says. ``An ice-skating movie hadn't been done in a long, long time. I also knew what a passion people have for ice skating. I loved it when I was a little girl."

"Disney was like, Okay, done. Now start training your ass off!''

"Life is good,'' Trachtenberg says. "Shawn and I have been together a year, which is crazy, but we didn't let anybody know until many months into it. And Four Women will be another film in which I get to play an adult, so that's great.''

"That was awesome,'' Trachtenberg says. "People are so quick to peg actors into certain roles. Casting directors, directors and producers pick up scripts and say, `So-and-so would be perfect.' That's what I try to get away from. That's why I did Six Feet Under."

"Everyone thinks of me as nice and everyone thinks I can only play nice characters,'' the actress says. "In real life I'm not always nice, and that's a reality people have to face. I'm mostly a really happy person, but all the characters I've played are a small percentage of my personality insanely heightened."

"People only see me sometimes as Dawn or Harriet or whatever,'' she says, "and I want to keep people guessing. Celeste was perfect  she was the combination of everything you read about in the tabloids and every pop star rolled into one."

"I don't want to be as bitchy as Celeste, but I'd like to be as knowledgeable. She broke down at one point, and when she did she realised how screwed up her life was and, for a second, she took a step back from it. That's something I'd like to achieve, the knowledge that it's not all about the work. I think I've been able to do that without the breakdown!''

"They had a whole bunch of trainers and nutritionists, but I didn't listen. I stuck to chocolate and cheese."

"I was a rather outspoken 3-year-old,'' she said. "I saw a commercial where a little girl was brushing Barbie's hair and I said, `That's what I want - I want to brush Barbie's hair!' And my mom was, `OK, if that's what you want to do.'"

'I love shopping. I know it might sound vain but I just love it! There's a new Marc Jacobs store opening in Los Angeles and my boyfriend and mom said they're going to supply the store with my photo and say please don't let this girl inside.'

'I value my fans so much, they're awesome.'

'And Michelle just nailed the part so perfectly. Her chemistry with Joe is dead on. Michelle is it—and the camera, of course, absolutely worships her.'

'I really think it is one of the most beautiful depictions of the human heart.'

'I want you to leave the theatre not necessarily being like, "Oh my god Michelle rocked!" I want you to leave the theatre saying, "Holy shit! That was intense and insane, and it was amazing." I want people talking.'

'It's a major departure from anything I've ever done. After you do a project, you get sent a ton of scripts that are exactly like that character. Gregg took a huge chance on me, and I appreciate it so much because he saw me outside the kitschy Buffy box.'

'You know, one of the first times I went bowling with my boyfriend, I totally hit the gutter, and he's like, 'It's okay, honey, at least you look pretty.'

'That, to me, is awesome, and I thank those other actors because it helps those of us who are still out there as well.'

'Like Carrie, I feel that everyone, no matter how confident, is somewhat insecure. I like to view myself as a confident person with a whole bunch of insecurities because that's what makes me real.'

'I just loved the script. I had been looking at independent scripts for a long time. I had been offered some really cool roles, but nothing that I ever really connected with. And then Mysterious Skin came along, and I thought, "Well, this is a sweet way to just sort of slide into the world." And it's very shocking, but it just read so well and it felt so beautiful on the page, and I immediately wanted to do it.'

'I guess I'm a little schizophrenic in my choices. I feel that in order to truly be an actor, you have to differentiate yourself and your roles, and you have to constantly challenge yourself. I'm not interested in just doing glitzy movie after glitzy movie and being on the cover of Us Weekly every day (or every week--whatever, right?). That's not something that's appealing to me.'

'It's actually a lot like my own relationship [with Joseph Gordon-Levitt]. We're not as screwed up, thankfully. [laughs] But Joe and I are sort of like an old married couple. We have great conversations, we love each other, we're very, very comfortable just being around. It's all very organic. And I think the world of his acting abilities.'

'I'm so not method. I think it's probably in the Eurotrip outtakes...we're doing one scene where we're eating brownies and we're all laughing and they're like, "Cut!" I'm like [feigns exhaustion]. I was really tired that day. I'm like a light switch. Method doesn't really work for me.'

'And I actually think the two characters that I've loved playing most in my life are Six Feet Under (Celeste) and Mysterious Skin (Wendy). Those are the two projects that I've ever been able to watch more than once. Everything else is cool and good, but I had a blast specifically on those.'

'And I just wanted something different, something I connected to. And if people watch this movie and say, "Oh my God, I can't believe she did this," [then] thank you, because that's, I guess, what I wanted you to say.'

'For some reason, I still get, "Oh, Harriet the Spy!" walking down the hall. I'm like, "Ten years later and I still...? You know, I have boobs! [laughs] I grew up!" I was actually doing a photoshoot for a magazine a few months back, and just as I was about to go out, I was looking at the video collection. We were shooting in someone's house, and in the little girl's room was the VHS of Harriet the Spy. And it was very flattering.'

'I think Mysterious Skin is one of the most beautiful depictions of human life and reality and what happens to people.'

'But I wouldn't study theatre. I've never taken any acting classes. I don't believe anyone has a right to tell me how to be an actress other than my director, so I've never responded to that. I would study the history of film, I'd study producing and directing and just the beauty of film.'

'Yeah, right? [playfully exaggerated] "Oh, so you mean I haven't changed it already? God!"'

'I know that sounds very cliche, very [grandiose accent] "one hand, one help!" But it's true. I mean, it's as simple as not taking a particular call: you're sitting in a coffee shop and you're not talking loudly on your cell phone, and then the person next to you doesn't get a headache, and then that person can come home and maybe spend an hour extra watching TV with their child, and then the next day, the kid goes to school and he does better on the test because his mom or dad spent more time with him. It's like the stupid little things that you don't think anything of actually can affect people in a huge way. So you, in your own individuality, can help save the world.'

'This is a very adult role. I'm 23 years old in the movie, there's love scenes, there's affairs with older men," she says. "I'd be doing myself a disservice as an actress if I would remain as any one character forever.'

'It's the story of how Carrie discovers what she wants in her own life," Trachtenberg explains, "and about the journey she takes to get there.'

'Carrie and I are both very mature people who tackle problems head-on. Like Carrie, I feel that everyone, no matter how confident, is somewhat insecure. I like to view myself as a confident person with a whole bunch of insecurities because that's what makes me real.'

'I definitely follow my heart more than my head and deal with the repercussions afterward! I'm a very a passionate person — it just comes from the heart. If you don't follow your heart, you're stuck with a lot of boring black and white.'

'I have a bunch of independent movies on my slate, including one that I am producing. After all, I am a movie girl at heart. And I'm looking forward to my 20th birthday and getting that "teen" away from the end of my age!'

'I love shopping and reading. I like being with my friends, family, boyfriend. I love watching DVDs at home in my sweat pants and with my zit cream on. It's all great.'

'Comfort food smells are the best!'

From PaleyFest 2008 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Reunion:

"I gave myself psychosomatic laryngitis when I heard I had to sing. But somehow with lots of tea and lemon... I think I'm the only one who's not on the DVD of the singing because my face was so puffy from crying."

"Obviously I'm honoured to be a part of such an amazing episode, I know that being a fan of the show from the very beginning then and actually being on it was very surreal for me so when I read the episode it was like I was loosing a part of myself to be honest and Joss has an amazing way of just really making you feel everything.. the stage directions you just knew where you were at that very moment. The interesting part of the episode in the scene we shot was that it had dialogue when Sarah comes to tell me that our mom has passed away. It was a whole back and forth conversation, the whole break down and everything and obviously you guys know that in the end result there is no sound and I think that was one of the most brilliant ideas you've ever had as it allows everyone to attach their own emotional plug to whatever might have happened in your lives and everything. I think it allowed the audience to really connect with Dawn for the first time."

Joss: "Sorry for putting you through half a day of weeping though."
Michelle: "Yeah well I had the gaffers and you know and the dolly crew you know everyone crying so that was pretty cool. The kneeling thing..."
Marti: "Everyone was puffy."

"I'm learning so much about everyone." - in response to Ambers comment that she had no idea she and Alyson were going to be lovers (she meant Willow and Tara)

Michelle: "I eat In N Out Burger."
Seth: "Me too, it's the best. Any fans of In N Out Burger? (audience cheers)"
Michelle: "It's all about the fries."

"They didn't let me talk when I was 14 too. Labybrinth, Rainman, awesome. Mix on my iPod everything from Madonna, to Kayne West, Jimmy Eat World, Greenday, ABBA Gold. I recently just got a mix from 1985 the best songs. Britney Spears You Want a Piece of Me (Seth: You rebel) (she laughs) Gangster."

"Can't Hardly Wait, no?" - on Seth's favourite film, he starred in Can't Hardly Wait

"Scrabble is endorsing us tonight.'

"I would either sneak into Sarah's trailer and pet her shoes...""

"I know I just cursed on stage. But its cool I'm over 18 now."

Michelle: "He's just mad cause I'm taller than him now (audience laughs) I love you."
Nick: "I've got Bigger boobs"
Michelle: "They look better on me!"

"I did, I stole some clothes, I stole a couple of wooden spikes which are just sorta in a drawer like I'm not going to use a wooden spike on anyone but its fun to have one day for my old memorbilia room."

"So when he called and asked me to bring out my inner bad girl I was like why not?"

Got a Michelle quote? Please submit! You will be fully credited! Just send it here with your name and e-mail address.