I was valedictorian. Did I enjoy going to school? I hated it. It wasn't a choice on my part, it was expected.

I have a sort of tactility about music. I go into record stores and just run my fingers over it, the spines.

I think Tolstoy had an unbelievably complicated relationship with women.

It is extremely arrogant and very foolish to think that you can ever outwit your audience.

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

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.

But obligation, I eventually saw, is not the same as commitment, and it's certainly not an acceptable reason to stick with something that isn't working