Writing should be like skirts. Long enough to cover what it needs to cover and short enough to maintain interest.

Fellini is a just a province kid. Rome exists for Fellini, not the other way around.

I think a pretty good modus operandi is to believe that everything we know is wrong. The stomach will be the key to depression or consciousness or we'll realize ants are smarter than people.

We're artists. We cry out to be exploited on some level. Write a dissertation on my work. Write a biography about me.

Everybody is so goddamn sure of themselves, it just makes you realize this is the curse of the modern world.

I think maybe it's my personality. People don't like my face.

This [Thelonious Monk: The Life And Times Of An American Original] is another one of those books with the perfect blend of anecdote and analysis. The analysis is built into the anecdote. It has that right feel about it. It's not too scholarly, either.