“Art finds a way to be constructive. It becomes heat in cold places; it becomes light in dark places.”

I always wear the same thing at home. I can’t be bothered with jewelry. My pants have elastic waists. I like to be comfortable. There are so many more important things to worry about.

Art is the signature of a generation; artists have a way of defining the times.

I don’t read music. Not even essentially. Not even nonessentially.

Directing is so interesting. You know, it just sort of encompasses everything that you see, that you know, that you’ve felt, that you have observed.

I don’t like talking about myself and I don’t like talking about the work.

I remember when I was 5 living on Pulaski Street in Brooklyn, the hallway of our building had a brass banister and a great sound, a great echo system. I used to sing in the hallway.

My nose was part of my heritage, and if I had talent to sing and to act, why wasn’t that enough?

I don’t know why it is that we need to denigrate, to knock down. It’s so sick.

When I was maybe 5 or 6 years old, the neighborhood girls would sit on the stoop and sing. I was known as the kid who had a good voice and no father.

I’ve been called many names like perfectionist, difficult and obsessive. I think it takes obsession, takes searching for the details for any artist to be good.

I’d started going to acting classes at 14, played ‘Medea’ at 15 and really wanted to be a classical actress.

My mother never really thought I could become anything.

In the music business, we all do different things, but we sit there and admire other people who can write a song differently or sing differently. It’s not so competitive.

Being a woman in music was fine, but when I wanted to direct, I was poking my head into a man’s world.

I hate tooting my own horn, but after Steven Spielberg saw Yentl, he said: “I wish I could tell you how to fix your picture, but I can’t. It’s the best film I’ve seen since Citizen Kane”.

I am a nice person. I care about my driver having lunch, you know.

Iwas a sculptor.Butthat’sreallydrawinga drawing you fall over in the dark, a three-dimensional drawing.

The dark of my eyes, the fullness of my lips, and coal in my complexion.

With my hand in his, I looked at all the apartment buildings with rushes of love, peering in the wide streetside windows that revealed living rooms painted in dark burgandies and matte reds.

An opportunity to honor the legacy of the lives drawn into the lines in my face, the broad of my nose.

O Hope! Dazzling, radiant Hope! What a change thou bringest to the hopeless; brightening the darkened paths, and cheering the lonely way.

Just don’t keep me in the dark about things. Otherwise, why am I with you?

She had been wrong to think it wouldn’t matter that much to him, yes,He took her for granted, of course he did , but he took her for granted – not like an old coat in the corner of a dark cupboard, as she’d put it to herself , but like the very air that he breathed .

Enticing hope is like lighting candle in the dark room.