In any performance, you're on stage for two hours, and there's 40 seconds or maybe a whole five minutes where you feel like the whole universe is in place, and you've gone even beyond the universe that you know.

What I wanted to do in rock'n'roll was merge poetry with sonic scapes, and the two people who had contributed so much to that were Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison.

I've never felt grounded because of my ancestry or my gender. I think until women get away from that they're not going to be great writers.

I don't wear makeup. I can't stand nothin' on my face. It's a phobia. It's not a platform.

I'm certain, as we filled down the great staircase, that I appeared the same as ever, a moping twelve years-old, all arms and legs. But secretly I knew I had been transformed, moved by the revelation that human beings create art, that to be an artist was to see what others could not.

When you do controversial work, you're going to upset a certain amount of people.

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