Play is the taproot from which original art springs. It is the raw stuff that the artist channels with all his learning and technique.

Every moment of life is unique-a kiss, a sunset, a dance, a joke. None will ever recur in quite the same way. Each happens only once in the history of the universe.

The most potent muse of all is our own inner child.

Improvisation is intuition in action, a way to discover the muse and learn to respond to her call.

The easiest way to do art is to dispense with success and failure altogether and just get on with it.

Structure ignites spontaneity. Limits yield intensity. When we play... by our self-chosen rules, we find that containment of strength amplifies strength.

The noun of self becomes a verb. This flashpoint of creation in the present moment is where work and play merge.

Creative work is play. It is free speculation using materials of ones chosen form.

To do anything artistically you have to acquire technique, but create through your technique and not with it.

Surrender means cultivating a comfortable attitude toward not knowing, being nurtured by the mystery of moments that are dependably surprising, ever fresh.

Any action can be practiced as an art, as a craft, or as drudgery.

Sin is a shameful act.

A book comes and says, 'Write me.

He might be faithless but I believe in him.

My flesh looked like it wasn't trying. It looked like it hated being part of me.

Neither privacy nor publicity is dead, but technology will continue to make a mess of both.

And if I let myself down, appear on stage when I'm not looking my best, it's not fun for me. I just beat myself up about it.

I use other cookbooks for inspiration. I must say I tend to cook from my own cookbooks for parties.

The highest happiness of man ... is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.

My mom was there, in some form, in some sense, in some universe. My mom was still my mom, even if she only lived in books and door locks and the smell of fried tomatoes and old paper. She lived.

To have a moral sense is not to be dogmatic in dealing with rules. It can be an open way with dealing with questions of objectives and purpose, which is completely different.