Good anecdote--bad reality.

I like having written better than I like having acted.

My inner world seems largely to consist of three rotating emotions: embarrassment, rage, and tension. Sometimes I feel excited, but I think that's just positive tension.

You have to constantly arrange yourself around them, and that can take up a lot of energy. I mean, you don't go, "Why don't you cook dinner tonight, dear, for a change, instead of writing a great song?" I loved what [Paul Simon] did with words. But I wanted to do some more of that, too.

I say more power to [Madonna], though I don't know how much more power is out there.

I did the traditional thing with falling in love with words, reading books and underlining lines I liked and words I didn't know. It was something I always did.

I grew up knowing that I had the prettiest mother of anyone in my class.