I think Northern California is the most beautiful place on earth. And I adore New Orleans, but there's something about the air in SF, for instance. It changes from moment to moment, like one's thoughts.

Who says reading should be easy? Shouldn't it challenge you as hard sometimes as love. Maybe "hard" is not the right word in this context. Ha!

I think you're not really teaching anyone unless you're learning yourself.

The artist’s memory is a dangerous, necessary thing. Never disavow what you see and remember-it’s your brilliant stock-in-trade: remembering, and making something out of it. Artists remember the world as it is, first, because you have to know what it is you’re reinventing; that’s a rule, perhaps the only one: being cognizant of your source material.

Inspiration takes many forms, but it's rarely pure.

Great sadness can be off putting, hard to comprehend, especially if it hasn't been your experience. It's amazing for me to know now that AIDS, for instance, is something a lot of people don't "get," whereas it entirely shaped my social life since the time I was twenty until I was almost forty.

Challenging is good, like good conversation, yes? Who wants to have dinner with the same old easy listening music sounding friends all the time?