You'll almost encounter a superstition amongst musicians, people sort of go through strange rituals, what they need to do to write a song.
People expect artists to be too normal, I think. I've been around enough of them now to see that they're very extraordinary human beings who behave differently than ordinary human beings. If they weren't as sensitive as they are, they wouldn't be great artists. They are not the same as us. People should just learn to accept that.
I think I do things that are more common in theatre.
Just because you're an artist doesn't give you an excuse to be an asshole.
Before I was a parent I was struck by Rilke, who, as you know, didn't go to his daughter's wedding because he was writing a poem that day. That was the ideal for artistic behavior in 1950. That's the way I wanted to live.
I fancy the character of a poet is in every country the same,--fond of enjoying the present, careless of the future; his conversation that of a man of sense, his actions those of a fool.
