She bludgeoned me with a look of such limitless compassion that I immediately began to cry.

There was nothing in this world that was not a con, suddenly I understood this. Nothing really mattered, and nothing could be lost.

Maybe that's why people take pictures of themselves, to avoid being described.

There's always the sense that you should strike while the iron's hot and while there are all these opportunities, but that's not the way I get ideas. It has to be more organic, building up through living and through experiencing things.

I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again.

It would require constant vigilance to not replace each person with my own fictional version of them.

That's the artist's job, really: continually setting yourself free, and giving yourself new options and new ways of thinking about things.