The necessity to constantly turn in an excellent performance, to be absolutely wedded to this dedication and this ideal means that as a child you're going to pay for it personally.

When you're in a groove, you're not spinning your wheels; you're moving forward in a straight and narrow path without pauses or hitches. You're unwavering, undeviating, and unparalleled in your purpose. A groove is the best place in the world. Because when you are in it, you have the freedom to explore, where everything you question leads you to new avenues and new routes.

Usually kids who are talented have the brashness to think they can do anything, but they don't often get the chance to see how close they can come.

I think that probably the moments of discovery do come from a place that is not totally organized. Order is something that we already know about. Discoveries are in a place we don't already know about.

In the future, I will make certain that I commit to projects so there's enough breathing space for me to have an emotional life.

The disasteris not the money, although the money will be missed. The disaster is the disrespect--this belief that the arts are dispensable, that they're not critical to a culture's existence.

when the time came I would do battle with my mother for the right to sit at the center of my own life.