My mother was harsh and constantly told me I had jug ears and heaven knows what else. But she was devoted and a hard worker.

If your ceiling is falling down, don't you call someone in? I apply the same principle to myself.

We're all works of art in progress.

I'm loath to do interviews. What comes out is generally not what I meant or thought I was saying or thought they were asking.

I didn't marry to have children. I married to have a relationship, and I was blessed with one child. I was an only child, too - my mother was smarter than most women today; she just had me.

I'm doing the best I can with the ravages of time on my body and I'm a work in progress. I can't write a memoir because I can't do it this week or next week... I try to be an inspiration to the young to respect their older people; we can't stay the same, but we do the best we can with what's left. You can't whine about stuff, you have to learn to eat humble pie along the way and keep going, because the alternative is going to happen.

The minute we don't finance the arts, the accountants, attorneys and politicians keep taking the cream of money off the top and it doesn't trickle down unless all of society understands that we must support the arts, whether it's ballet, opera, fashion. Fashion is like opera, is like ballet, is like theatre. It's a visual theatre.