“Once I knew that I wanted to be an artist, I had made myself into one. I did not understand that wanting doesn't always lead to action. Many of the women had been raised without the sense that they could mold and shape their own lives, and so, wanting to be an artist (but without the ability to realize their wants) was, for some of them, only an idle fantasy, like wanting to go to the moon.”

“For too many centuries women have been being muses to artists. I wanted to be the muse, I wanted to be the wife of the artist, but I was really trying to avoid the final issue — that I had to do the job myself.”

“I wanted to like her and I wanted her to like me and that was more want than I had saddled myself with in many a moon.”

“And just like that, I knew what I wanted. Something I had always wanted. But it was so unrealistic it hadn’t even made it to my wish list.”

“I realized that it was not that I didn’t want to go on without him. I did. It was just that I didn’t know why I wanted to go on”

“So this was different. I was amazing now - to them and to myself. It was like I had been born to be a vampire. The idea made me want to laugh, but it also made me want to sing. I had found my true place in the world, the place I fit, the place I shined.”