Alone is a fact, a condition where no one else is around. Lonely is how you feel about that.

In the end, there is no ideal condition for creativity. What works for one person is useless for another. The only criterion is this: Make it easy on yourself. Find a working environment where the prospect of wrestling with your muse doesn't scare you, doesn't shut you down. It should make you want to be there, and once you find it, stick with it. To get the creative habit, you need a working environment that's habit-forming. All preferred working states, no matter how eccentric, have one thing in common: When you enter into them, they compel you to get started.

The routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightening bold of inspiration, maybe more. And this routine is available to everyone.

I think a sense of humor will help get a girl out of a dark place.

I work because I have issues and questions and feelings and thoughts that I want to have a look at. I'm not in need of, or wanting, particularly, to know what other folk are up to.

Optimism with some experience behind it is much more energizing than plain old experience with a certain degree of cynicism.

When I'm in the studio, when I'm warm, when I'm what people call improvising, I feel a very special connection. I feel the most right. I don't want to become too mystic about this, but things feel as though they're in the best order at that particular moment.