My husband had an education. He had a degree in Literature. I married into a camp of literary types.

I never loved a man as far as I could pitch my shoe.

I wish I had a river I could skate away on?

Not to dismiss Gershwin, but Gershwin is the chip; Ellington was the block.

At the point where I'm trying to force something and it's not happening, and I'm getting frustrated with, say, writing a poem, I can go and pick up the brushes and start painting. At the point where the painting seems to not be going anywhere, I go and pick up the guitar.

I thrive on change. That's probably why my chord changes are weird, because chords depict emotions. They'll be going along on one key and I'll drop off a cliff, and suddenly they will go into a whole other key signature. That will drive some people crazy, but that's how my life is.

When you reach that kind of successful pinnacle, it is the nature of the business and the press and everything that they go about tearing you down.