“What allows genius to flower is not neurosis but its opposite... ordinary Sunday-school virtues such as tenacity and above all the ability to survive disappointment.”

“Those who lament the dissolution of the American family-kids with no way to get to Girl Scouts, aging parents put into nursing homes-should remember what it was that kept the American family together: women's blood.”

“Art, like Nebraska, is a journey into thin air, a walk into whiteness, where you lose everything but yourself.”

“It occurs to me that we allow ourselves to imagine only such messages as we need to survive.”

“The problem with the heart is how it can have so many opposite feelings coursing through it all at the same time. It's really an inconsistent thing- appreciating something one minute and hating it the next. ”

“Whatever we embrace will embrace us back: misery or happiness, sadness or joy, guilt or virtue, regress or progress. We are what we choose to be.”

“Janis Joplin is singing with Big Brother in the Panhandle and almost everybody is high and it is a pretty nice Sunday afternoon.”