It was no hardship to me to spend long hours reading and writing.

For Christmas every year, my mother used to give me those cheap little diaries that would tell your horoscope and provide a little blank slot for each day.

I believe myself to be an artist. That was my calling, to do my work, and what's most important to me is to do the best work I possibly can. And that is what means the most, that is what will endure.

I got over the loss of his desk and chair, but never the desire to produce a string of words more precious than the emeralds of Cortés.

I was at one of the lowest points of my life when we started this film [Dream of Life], except, of course, that I had two great children. But the film is not documenting a decline; it's documenting a rise up - first baby steps and then big steps up. The worst that could have ever happened to me had already happened. And so the film is on the ascent. And I think that gives it a nice spirit.

I don't know about that. I'm not a very analytical person. I have various impulses. I've often quoted Walt Whitman's phrase "I contain multitudes." I understand that.

Those were the things on my mind [stay healthy, take care of my kids and reestablish a relationship with the people], not career, money, drugs, sex, alcohol or fun. Not that there's anything wrong with any of those things, but they aren't in the film [Dream of Life], because that wasn't my life at the time.