I read a lot by female psychoanalyst Lou Andreas-Salomé, who wrote prominent biographies of Nietzsche, Rilke, and Freud because she studied with all of them. She had this unbelievable insight into contemporary psychoanalysis. What is so interesting is that she wrote her life, and she knew that her life would be about these men, and it didn't stop her from leading an incredibly successful academic career. But her strange self-awareness that she was going to bookmark these men's lives is really interesting to me.

I made an important decision, which was to pursue happiness. Rather than accept unhappiness. That's why I'm here, and it's great. I'm in a very good place in my life.

Oh! To not need cognitive justification for every single thing. Wouldn't that be a life?

It’s hard to accept yourself as someone you don’t desire / As someone you don’t want to be.

Basically what Salomé did with Rilke as a mentor was direct him toward the Russian Orthodox Church, so he could project his love of the divine feminine onto the Virgin Mary. She wanted him to stop the cycle of being disappointed by the ultimate humanity of women. She was like, "You don't want me, you want the Virgin Mary." It's kind of a mystical concept! She also changed Freud's opinion, a little bit too late, about the female psyche, which he had so wrong. If it had been better publicized, it would have changed Western society's perception of the female psyche, too.

I think everybody who relates to music is kind of isolated. It's lonely. Everyone who uses the creative side of their brain is that much removed from reality. They are looking for answers wherever they can find them.

I feel increasingly like age is very irrelevant. Quite often, cynicism is confused with wisdom, and my scorn is confused with a knowing, which I don't have.