Art is by nature optimistic. Art is optimistic because it is alive.

People called me the godmother of punk, but I never name myself anything.

For I desired, as Youth does, to be taken by the hand and hurled into the world.

All the traumas I went through separating art from writing don't exist anymore. That's why I love being in rock 'n' roll. It's a whole life thing.

What will happen to us?" I asked. "There will always be us," he answered.

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.

New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling. But there are other cities. Detroit. Poughkeepsie. New York City has been taken away from you. So my advice is: Find a new city.