The writer… begins in confusion and nothingness and writes his way into clarity.

There is no neutrality. There is only greater or lesser awareness of one's bias.

The literature of women's lives is a tradition of escapees, women who have lived to tell the tale.

an autobiography held out the promise of hearing truths that only friends confess to one another but are knowledge you need to live.

Perhaps that is what love is -- the momentary or prolonged refusal to think of another person in terms of power.

I believe we need literature, which, by allowing us to experience more fully, to imagine more fully, enables us to live more freely.

biographies are a little like marriages: You only have room in your life for one or two.

One form of loneliness is to have a memory and no one to share it with.

the challenge of nonfiction is to marry art and truth.

Every reading is a misreading.

They say that the eyes of some paintings can follow you around the room, a fact that I doubt, but I am wondering whether some music can follow you for ever.

You will live in me always. Your words, your heart, your soul are all part of me. My heart is full of your memories. Thank you for the gift of your life. I will never forget you.

I always find that there is a real communication between voice and violin.

I don't tweet. I prefer face-to-face communication and sometimes Instagram.

My son, Rob....said the only time he ever wraps a gift is, quote, "if it's such a poor gift that I don't want to be there when the person opens it."

As you get more global warming, you should see an increase in the extremes of the hydrological cycle - droughts and floods and heavy precipitation.

So, I don't work in terms of real time. I don't work in a timely fashion.

I don't see decadence really as what you do, because I don't do much at all that is decadent in my life. But I still am decadent. It's a state of mind, I think.

Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.