I spent a lot of time at the New York Public Library, the main branch. I was one of those people. If you ever spend a good amount of time there, you realize there are people who spend the entire day there. They're bookish homeless people.

I think it's important to make art that is not that easily absorbable, that is a challenge to the authorities.

I remember seeing a photograph of myself en pointe with my hand over my head and the other hand turned in under my breast curtseying. I took dance lessons at Miss Debbie's Dance Studio, and she put this picture of me in the storefront window. I was so unbelievably humiliated by the sight of myself.

You always feel very vulnerable when you put your work out there. You feel a kind of nakedness. And you expose something of the inner workings of the way you experience life.

You have to be polite with your friends and your family, but in your art, it's important to not be polite.

I think it's really important as an artist not to be drawn to the haters, because there are so many people who are nice and quiet.

There was an expression of intensity in dance that was so compelling to me that I wanted a piece of that action.