The painter who feels obligated to depict his subjects as uniformly beautiful or handsome and without flaws will fall short of making art.

I'd known enough flush times and lean ones to understand that money came and went. And that one day I'd also lose my looks, my seemingly boundless energy and maybe the ability to catch the eye of an attractive man and the audacity to Rollerblade. My name would be forgotten. So would bad reviews, and good ones. But loving a child is something that lasts. Long after all the rest is gone, that's what endures.

If a man wishes to truly not be written about, he would do well not to write letters to 18-year-old girls, inviting them into his life.

[On home births:] In a house where there had been three people, there were now four, although no one had come in the door.

Growing up in the fifties and sixties, I can only remember knowing one child, ever, whose parents got a divorce, and hardly any whose mother "worked" at anything besides raising her children.

The painter who feels obligated to depict his subjects as uniformly beautiful or handsome and without flaws will fall short of making art.

As for me, I've chosen to follow a simple course: Come clean. And wherever possible, live your life in a way that won't leave you tempted to lie. Failing that, I'd rather be disliked for who I truly am than loved for who I am not. So, I tell my story. I write it down. I even publish it. Sometimes this is a humbling experience. Sometimes it's embarrassing. But I haul around no terrible secrets.