I suppose for me as an artist it wasn't always just about expressing my work I really wanted more than anything else to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.

The test of the artist does not lie in the will with which he goes to work but in the excellence of the work he produces.

The worst sin that can be committed against the artist is to take him at his word to see in his work a fulfillment instead of an horizon.

I'm excited about there being more of a sisterhood these days. Back in the '90s there was a lot of hate - the women I looked up to as artists were dissing me! It's not so patriarchal these days - there's more love and a lot less hate!

I am a poor student sitting at the feet of giants yearning for their wisdom and begging for lessons that might one day make me a complete artist so that if all goes well I may one day sit beside them.

Some artists shrink from self-awareness fearing that it will destroy their unique gifts and even their desire to create. The truth of the matter is quite opposite.

I've been & am absurdly over-estimated. There are no supermen & I'm quite ordinary & will say so whatever the artistic results. In that point I'm one of the few people who tell the truth about myself.

I've never read a screenplay in advance. You trust the artist.

I have complete artistic control and I just do my best album every time and trust it to fate.

If you're an original thinker you are going get told 'no' a lot and you have to be able to hear 'no' many times from the bankers and trust that at some point someone is going to recognize that you are an artist and not a can of soda.