What we call reality is an agreement that people have arrived at to make life more livable.

My husband's family was terribly refined. Within their circle you could know Beethoven, but God forbid if you were Beethoven.

I think that in the sexual act, as delightful as it can be, the very physical part of it is, yes, a hammering away. So it has a certain brutality.

I was given the gifts of the artist, and the trouble that goes with them: So I have that blessing, and there was never a time thatI questioned it or doubted it.... For forty years, I wanted to jump out of windows.

It's a hell of a thing to be born, and if you're born you're at least entitled to your own self.

I never feel age... If you have creative work you don't have age or time.

I never liked the middle ground-the most boring place in the world.