All the intelligence and talent in the world can't make a singer. The voice is a wild thing. It can't be bred in captivity. It is a sport, like the silver fox. It happens.

What was any art but a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itself - life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.

Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.

The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pope or an emperor.

The rigors of creativity - the self-doubt, the revising, the solitude - do require a kind of self-consumption. It comes at a cost; a cost that isn't for everyone.

I went to art school, and I wanted to be an artist since I was 5. I basically moved to New York to do art, and I just sort of fell into doing music at an early age.

Existential philosophy, poetry and art - just like sadness - were all unavoidable to a tender young man in the meat works.

I really believe that cultivating creativity, as a general principle, is about managing your energy.