Talk about yourself as much as you like, but do not expect others to listen.

Pain narrows consciousness; pleasure blurs it.

When Medusa looks in the mirror, she sees the Lady of Sorrows.

My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.

Retirement requires the invention of a new hedonism, not a return to the hedonism of youth

The sewing machine joins what the scissors have cut asunder, plus whatever else comes in its path.

Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story.

The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.

'Be faithful to your roots' is the liberal version of 'Stay in your ghetto.'

Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.

Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris.

Hopes are potential power. It has the innate ability to show the way of life.

You can never get enough of adventure.

Observe the world around you everything you do, and especially everything you hate to do.

Everybody needs some good sketch comedy.

When I was on Broadway, people would really just recognize me around the theater. When you're showing up on commercials and posters, the scope of people recognizing you gets a little wider.

Blessed books—they’re a place to be alone, and no one else can come in.

I think it's the tragedy of our time that we're not aware of the affect of the manner in which we've adopted tools. Those tools have become who we are.

At the end of the block where I used to live in Coconut Grove in Miami, there's a swampy area, a no-name alcove with a little mangrove estuary. It's beautiful.

The pressure we put on ourselves to produce this perfect... operatic... version of ourselves really puts an inordinate amount of stress and tension on us.

But the Grammys is just not something I can take too seriously. It would be a mistake to hinge my happiness on something so completely out of my control.