artists often lie behind on the field long after the art combine, the broad-bladed harvester of informed criticism, has mowed, bailed, and stored the crop.

The end of parenthood is implicit in its beginning: separation.

Love ... is the honoring of others in a way that grants them the grace of their own autonomy and allows mutual discovery.

the capacity to work feeds on itself and has its own course of development. This is what artists have going for them.

I have been flooded with color on the inside, drab on the outside.

I've struggled all my life to get maximum meaning in the simplest possible form.

Their [artists'] essential effort is to catapult themselves wholly, without holding back one bit, into a course of action without having any idea where they will end up. They are like riders who gallop into the night, eagerly leaning on their horse's neck, peering into a blinding rain. And they have to do it over and over again.