Even now, I have traces of the good little girl. When I am not performing, for instance, I am really very quiet and ordinary.

The function of the artist in a disturbed society is to give awareness of the universe, to ask the right questions, and to elevate the mind.

I think communication starts when words are not present at all ... I think we put so much emphasis on language, actually silence is so much more important.

Theatre is fake... The knife is not real, the blood is not real, and the emotions are not real. Performance is just the opposite: the knife is real, the blood is real, and the emotions are real.

Because we never stop silently loving those who we once loved out loud

I am only interested in the ideas that become obsessive and make me feel uneasy. The ideas that I'm afraid of.

True love for whatever you are doing is the answer to everything.

A great artist has to be ready to fail.

Your ego can become an obstacle to your work. If you start believing in your greatness, it is the death of your creativity.

When you have so much pain, you think you will lose consciousness. If you say to yourself, ‘So what, lose consciousness,’ the pain goes away.

If we go for the easy way, then we never change.

Men do not fail they stop trying.

A student of life considers the world a classroom.

I had a wonderful teacher about animal behavior.

I...am always glad to touch the living rock again and dip my hand in the high mountain air.

To add a library to a house is to give that house a soul.

I try to never repeat a character. I always try to find something new and fresh and interesting that inspires me.

When I'm there, it's pure silence. There are other writers there, too, and I get super competitive. I have this weird fear that some guy next to me is writing this amazing novel, so I got to compete.

I wanted to completely honor The REV and pay tribute to him and carry on the legacy that he intended with this record.

The essay is a wonderful medium. I might mention that some writers who longed to be novelists were better as essayists: Sontag, Baldwin, Vidal, Mary McCarthy, Mailer.

Life is generally pretty damn amazing if you let it be.