Madonna remains the most visible performer on the planet as well as one of the wealthiest but would anyone seriously say that artistic self-development is her primary motivating principle? She is too busy with Kabbalah fashion merchandising adoption melodramas the gym and ill-starred horseback riding to study art.

Anyway I feel myself a bit on the edge on the art world but I don't mind I'm just pursuing my work in a very excited way. And there isn't really a mainstream anymore is there?

On this important anniversary we must remember that while we have come a long way in eliminating barriers critical work remains to ensure all Americans can live up to their full potential.

It's wonderful to be appreciated for being quirky and to see Zooey Deschanel and the quirky indie film types get mainstream play is amazing for women because women are much more complicated than what we've see on TV in the past.

The feeling of your baby taking nourishment from your body for the first time is amazing and it remains the most touching moment of my life.

He who does not fill his world with phantoms remains alone.

The daily act of writing remains as demanding and maddening as it was before and the pleasure you get from writing - rare but profound - remains at the true heart of the enterprise. On their best days writers all over the world are winning Pulitzers all alone in their studios with no one watching.

For the last third of life there remains only work. It alone is always stimulating rejuvenating exciting and satisfying.

The want of logic annoys. Too much logic bores. Life eludes logic and everything that logic alone constructs remains artificial and forced.

I was a queen and you took away my crown a wife and you killed my husband a mother and you deprived me of my children. My blood alone remains: take it but do not make me suffer long.