I find it painful when I'm without anything. But I work in multiple fields. If I can't write, I find myself taking photographs. I can go on the road and perform. But the most important thing for me is writing, and when I hit those walls, it's painful.

As an artist, I used to think that my responsibility was to do good work. But I had to learn from the 70s on that being a public figure presents another aspect of responsibility.

In my low periods, I wondered what was the point of creating art. For whom? Are we animating God? Are we talking to ourselves? And what was the ultimate goal? To have one's work caged in art's great zoos - the Modern, the Met, the Louvre?

New York is the thing that seduced me.

We need a new cosmology. New gods. New sacraments. Another drink.

I wish I could just project everything on the paper.

I never felt oppressed because of my gender. When I'm writing a poem or drawing, I'm not a female; I'm an artist.