"My foregrounds are imaginary, my backgrounds real."

"Abstraction can provide stumbling blocks for people of strange intelligence."

"For a long time now my heart has had its shutters closed, its steps deserted, formerly a tumultuous hotel, but now empty and echoing like a great empty tomb."

"Do not imagine you can exorcise what oppresses you in life by giving vent to it in art."

"He took it for granted that she was content; and she resented his settled calm, his serene dullness, the very happiness she herself brought him."

"As for the piano, the faster her fingers flew over it, the more he marveled. She struck the keys with aplomb and ran from one end of the keyboard to the other without a stop."

"What an awful thing life is, isn’t it? It’s like soup with lots of hairs floating on the surface. You have to eat it nevertheless."

"Let us not kid ourselves; let us remember that literature is of no use whatever, except in the very special case of somebody's wishing to become, of all things, a Professor of Literature."

"The writer must wade into life as into the sea, but only up to the navel."

"… Her heart remained empty once more, and the procession of days all alike began again. So they were going to follow one another, like this, in line, always identical, innumerable, bringing nothing!"

"Indeed, for the last three years, he had carefully avoided her, as a result of the natural cowardice so characteristic of the stronger sex..."

"There are some men whose only mission among others is to act as intermediaries; one crosses them like bridges and keeps going."

"Come, let’s be calm: no one incapable of restraint was ever a writer."

"One mustn't look at the abyss, because there is at the bottom an inexpressible charm which attracts us."

"I detest common heroes and moderate feelings, the sort that exist in real life"

"My life which I dream will be so beautiful, so poetic, so vast, so filled with love will turn out to be like everybody else's - monotonous, sensible, stupid."

"Act as young as you feel. You're not getting older; you're getting more entitled to be your fabulous self."

"This last year I kind of stopped working out. I think my body just needed a break. And so I did that, and focused more on feeling good as opposed to beating myself up."

"I have learned to delegate."

"I've been trying to do films for years. So I've decided to wait until the next good part comes along and develop a record on my own in the meantime."

"I'm kind of lazy. I like to lie around with my husband and watch TV and stuff like that."

"It takes a lot of selfish time to make music."

"Out of all the artistic things I do, music is the most rewarding because it's so hard to write songs."

"Born to blossom, bloom to perish"

"My mom and dad met at Anaheim High School. After they got married, all they wanted to do was have four children, and they did."

"I have to be creative to be happy."

"Being a mom is hard, I think a lot of working moms feel that way."

"A miracle... my biggest accomplishment is my marriage so far. Because it's hard, everyone knows it's hard."

"You can't plan anything, right? You can try."

"Every day I fail at something."

"I like to make my husband like me more, and he likes it when I'm wearing makeup."

"I've always been a girl who loves to dress up."

"Finding that balance between work and family is the hardest thing I've ever done - by far."

"It's superfun being a mom, but it's hard too."

"I remember so vividly the first song I ever wrote. It was called 'Different People.'"

"Although I'd always wanted children, it was such an opposite thing to being a singer."

"I have to tell everyone everything that's going on. It is different once you're married, because that's sacred."

"Every record that I've ever made, I listen to it so much before it comes out. As soon as it comes out, I never listen to it again. It's, like, over."

"Music has this emotional thing to it, and it touches people in crazy ways. The power of having that power is something that, once you have it, you don't want it to ever end."

"I'm neurotic about trying not to be neurotic!"

"I'm vain enough to want do a movie again."

"The one thing that makes me feel super lucky about my financial success is that I have a housekeeper."

"I'm really emotional. I don't fight with people - like, I can barely fight with my husband because I'll just start crying instead. I've learned not to do that."

"And if I let myself down, appear on stage when I'm not looking my best, it's not fun for me. I just beat myself up about it."

"I'd like to have no rules and eat what I want, but I've learned over the years that I'm so disappointed when I can't wear the clothes I want to wear."

"I work out five days a week; I can't imagine not doing it."

"My priorities are always going to be my husband and my family now. That's a huge, huge thing."

"My parents always pushed creativity on us, but they made it seem like the fun thing to do."

"I'm vain enough to want do a movie again, but right now more roles are the last thing on my list."

"You're always tellin' me to go out more, Go ahead, get out and see the world, But then I think, why should I? I'd rather stay home and cry."