Your life is a work of art, and in the end, the underlying theme of great art is bravery and hope and love.

Don't pour the oil directly into my navel, pour it on my sternum and let it run down into my navel, you ignorant peasant.

Have interesting failures.... If you need to have a personal crisis have it now. Don't wait until midlife, when it will take longer to resolve.... Don't pity yourselves. Lighten up. Seek people with a sense of humor. Avoid humorless people-and do not marry one, for God's sake.

Writing is the main gig and teaching and performing are sidelines, an excuse for not writing more. Working on a novel and on an opera make me seriously want to retire and find a volunteer job as a docent at the zoo explaining to schoolchildren where frogs go in the winter.

Nothing you do for children is ever wasted.

... I never was one to get upset about a few scratches on a motor vehicle, it is meant to be used, not saved.

... life itself is brief, and that is what charges the day with such ridiculous beauty.