A commission is an invitation to fall in love.

My mother was a dominant force in my life. She had a very specific idea about education, which was: you should know everything about everything. It was quite simple. There was no exclusivity, and there really was no judgment, which is a good thing for someone who still thinks of themselves as a very basic American.

I do everything I know how in a dance.

You can keep on chewing gum for ten hours, but after about a minute and a half you've got all the good out of it.

It's vital to establish some rituals-automatic but decisive patterns of behavior-at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up, or going the wrong way.

There's a paradox in the notion that creativity should be a habit. We think of creativity as a way of keeping everything fresh and new, while habit implies routine and repetition. That paradox intrigues me because it occupies the place where creativity and skill rub up against each other.

In dreams, anything can be anything, and everybody can do. We can fly, we can turn upside down, we can transform into anything.