This is a nice metaphor, too, about mothers and daughters - that when it came time for me to make my own, I was making a completely different garden than the one that my mom has. They don't look like they came from relatives. Hers is a very productive and pragmatic vegetable garden, and mine is a ridiculous overabundance of useless plants. It doesn't feed anybody, it doesn't serve any purpose.

If you want to know the world, sometimes you have to get out and roll around.

You know, it’s the same thing as the question of free will and destiny, the question of creativity - you, the artist, you’re not the puppet of the piano, you’re not the puppet of the muse, but you’re not its master, either. It’s a relationship, it’s a conversation, and all it wants is to be treated with respect and dignity - and it will return ten thousand times over.

In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted.

To show a longing for anything that one cannot have, for instance, is not a clever position.

Even in the worst tragedies and crisis, there’s no reason to add to everyone’s misery by looking miserable yourself.

God wants us to be in joy, God wants us to be happy.