Self-criticism is an art not many are qualified to practice.

Memory blurs, that's the point. If memory didn't blur you wouldn't have the fool's courage to do things again, again, again, that tear you apart.

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.

I never change, I simply become more myself.

How lovely this world is, really: one simply has to look.

Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality.

Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.

Night comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off the light.

Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.

See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there's a reason. There has to be

Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!

How little we know the ones we love. How little we know of anyone, in the end.

Life is a lot like jazz... it's best when you improvise.

Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace.

If you are bored with Berkeley and San Francisco, you are bored with life.

Troubles are like babies - they only grow by nursing.

I yearn for that livin' large, but mama I ain't done yet/Sit back and watch your son rise, kick back and know your son set

I have a lot of problems with Western European easel painting.

So between you and me," I tell Justine on the phone that night, "we're either bitchy or stupid." "Oh God," she moans. "Everyone thinks I'm an idiot." "Thanks!

I'm as proud to be Chinese as I am American.

I've done sexual stuff before - onstage, which is even more emotionally difficult. With a TV crew around, you are stopping and starting; it becomes really technical. It's not erotic at all.