The overhead lights reflect in the glass countertop and mingle in the gray and black of the gloves, resulting in a mother-of-pearl swirl that sometimes sends Mirabelle into a shallow hypnotic dream.

I'm not trying to be a big shot or anything like that, but I get my drinks half price.

There's a lot of thought in art. People get to talk about important things. There's a lot of sex, you know, in art. There's a lot of naked women and men, and there's intrigue, there's fakery. It's a real microcosm of the larger world.

It's not what you know, it's what you think you know.

Home to me is when someone comes up to me and says, "Can I get a selfie?" No. It's where your wife and your family are. It's the emotional place where you feel like you're not away from it.

As a school board we felt it's an unfair expense to families. The lawsuit has a certain logic to it - if you have free public education, you can't put these things on top of it. It defeats the purpose.

The Matisse seemed to respond to the decreasing light by increasing its own wattage. Every object in the room was drained of color, but the Matisse stood firm in the de-escalating illumination, its beauty turning functionality inside out, making itself a more practical and useful presence than anything else in sight.