It took me years to learn to sit at my desk for more than two minutes at a time, to put up with the solitude and the terror of failure, and the godawful silence and the white paper.

Perhaps all artists were, in a sense, housewives: tenders of the earth household.

Despite all the cynical things writers have said about writing for money, the truth is we write for love. That is why it is so easy to exploit us.

I knew I was in England by the smell.

The camera creates a magical transformation. It's not enough to exist; we must chronicle that existence. ... Narrative- and image-making creatures like humans don't feel any experience is complete unless it's recorded.

Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.

If we don't risk anything, we risk even more.