The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living. What we lack is not a will to believe but a will to wonder.

Artists of all disciplines must be willing to go into the dark, let go control, be surprised.

We can't take any credit for our talents. It's how we use them that counts.

I rebel against death, yet I know that it is how I respond to death's inevitability that is going to make me less or more fully alive.

Human beings are the only creatures who are allowed to fail. If an ant fails, it's dead. But we're allowed to learn from our mistakes and from our failures. And that's how I learn, by falling flat on my face and picking myself up and starting all over again.

It's a very American trait, this wanting people to think well of us. It's a young want, and I am ashamed of it in myself. I am not always a good daughter, even though my lacks are in areas different from her complaints. Haven't I learned yet that the desire to be perfect is always disastrous and, at the least, loses me in the mire of false guilt?

To create a work of art, great or small, is work, hard work, and work requires discipline and order.