To be an artist — actually, to be a human being in these times — it’s all difficult. … What matters is to know what you want and pursue it.

It's Steven's [Sebring] view of what he saw in traveling and working with me. But on another scale, I think the film [Dream of Life] is very humanistic: It touches on motherhood, death, birth, art, laundry, anger against the Bush administration... While I don't think it's the kind of film where one goes to find some of the darker, edgier aspects of life, the film was born of grief.

My public life was so demanding that I wasn't doing the things that I deemed the most important.

You can't work on that scale without trust. I learned that from working with Robert Mapplethorpe.

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.

The truth is, no matter how modest Steven [Sebring] is, he was obsessed with the outcome of the film [Dream of Life]. Every single frame was important to him.

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.