When you're young, you don't especially think of yourself as being young. You're just alive and everything's interesting and you don't think of things in terms of age because you're not conscious of it.

If you take text and image and you put them together, the multiple readings that are possible in either poetry or in something visual are reduced to one specific reading. By putting the two together, you limit the possibilities. Text and image don't always work together in the way music and song lyrics become part of each other.

Things always change, and New York teaches you that.

The problem with an autobiography is that all these extra factors make it difficult. You don't want to hurt people's feelings. You don't know how much you can trust your memory. You don't want it to be self-serving. And you have all these issues about how to present yourself. All these factors make it harder to do than a novel.

I love a good play, but they're too hard to find.

I shake my head and the tiny acrobats fall like spangles, like the cool rain on another planet, down to the inside of my feet.

You realize there are certain things that you'll never do that you always thought would be part of your future. It's a big relief to discover what you are best suited for, and it's a real advantage to be able then to focus.