My father hated rock and roll - hated it. My first real argument with my father was over the Rolling Stones. And he never, ever liked rock and roll. He just liked me.

What a model of an artist was for me was an artist who worked. Picasso was the ultimate model, because the work ethic he had.

I think its very important to not be afraid to experience joy in the middle of sorrow.

What I've always tried to do is to express the highest point of me, and rock 'n' roll is the first and the most open form created by our generation. The cool thing about it is that you get the power, you get the rhythm; you can be taken over sexually, you can be taken over cerebrally; it's great to look at - it's a package deal.

My small torrent of words dissipated into an elaborate sense of expanding and receding. It was my entrance into the radiance of imagination. This process was especially magnified within the fevers of influenza, measles, chickenpox, and mumps. I got them all and with each I was privileged with a new level of awareness. Lying deep within myself, the symmetry of a snowflake spinning above me, intensifying through my lids, I seized a most worthy souvenir, a shard of heaven’s kaleidoscope.

Then I read Little Women, and of course, like a lot of really young girls, I was very taken with Jo - Jo being the writer and the misfit.

In fact, I thought my calling was to be a painter.