I think it's important for people to realize that we were all young, all naive, and also we had lived in a time that had magic.

I was so used to doing art that my fingers were like albino spiders. So it was just natural for me to go to a typewriter and write poetry.

You don't want to OD on improvisation.

I wrote every day. I don't think I could have written Just Kids had I not spent all of the 80s developing my craft as a writer.

I didn't know Kurt Cobain or Amy Winehouse, but I was affected by both of their deaths because I admired their work so much and mourned their youth and work they would never produce.

I have abandoned so many projects but in the '80s when I left public life to be married and have real children - I love my children and I would never sacrifice them for anything - I had to find a way to simultaneously be a mother and wife and fulfill my duties and still be true to myself as a writer.

Both of them were ahead of their time, but they didn't live long enough to see the time they were ahead of.