"Artists do however have a degree of freedom. A writer has little power, but he does have freedom... Think very carefully about this. Do you want to be merely the spokesman for accomplished power movers? The more power, the less freedom. A politician has almost no freedom at all. I am frequently asked, 'What would you do if you were President? What would you do if you were the dictator of America? What would you do if you had a billion dollars?” In the words of my friend Ahmed Jacoubi, 'This question is not personal opinion.' A prior question must be asked: 'How did you get to be the President, a dictator, a billionaire?' The answers to these questions will condition what you will do. For one is not magically teleported into these positions; one gets there by a series of discrete steps, each step hedged with conditions and prices.”

could you be friends with someone who's always in a crisis? always struggling, always in some tremendous pain

I think my core values have remained unchanged, but they sharpened, and due to the sharpening my way of expression only gets softer and softer as I age because I literally have nothing to prove to anyone. Most importantly I have nothing to prove to myself. And while certain core values remain unchanged, a lot of my opinions become more and more abstract that to discuss them requires a very intimate audience.

Everyone will not just

My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol