I've always found it necessity to strip away everything but the most fundamental ways to work - the rest is style.

When it all comes together, a creative life has the nourishing power we normally associate with food, love and faith.

This is the hard part. Knowing and admitting a problem are not the same as solving it. But executing a solution is also the fun part, because the solution save you and gets you moving again.

The formal education that I received made little sense to me.

I write. I have read a great deal. I enjoy books. I like the wit of languages. Even French I like. I like to be able to think in different modes. I like to be able to use the language a great deal and carry on rehearsals in French.

You're only kidding yourself if you put creativity before craft.

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.