There are commercial copy services [that] know how to make money on 6 cents a page. No wonder New Jersey is finding itself in such financial distress; it begins at the local level.

I wonder if any of them can tell from just looking at me that all I am is the sum total of my pain, a raw woundedness so extreme that it might be terminal. It might be terminal velocity, the speed of the sound of a girl falling down to a place from where she can't be retrieved. What if I am stuck down here for good?

No wonder Ms. Pirro raised so little money,

I have a lot of memories with these people. It was great recording with Hendrix [and] playing with Stevie Wonder was great. They were all great. It's hard to pick any one of them out. Jimi [Hendrix] was very meticulous in the studio. He was always way ahead of his time.

I think some people are going to look at this after it's done and wonder where all of the money went. A lot of this work you're just not going to see. We have a 1960s structure with old electrical lines, practically no ventilation, and all of that will be changed.

When it comes to developing a worldview, we tend to face this false division: Either you are a realist who says the world is terrible, or a naïve optimist who says the world is wonderful and turns a blind eye. [Jack] Gilbert takes this middle way, and I think it’s a far better way: he says the world is terrible and wonderful, and your obligation is to joy. . . . A real, mature, sincere joy—not a cheaply earned, ignorant joy. He’s not talking about building a fortress of pleasure against the assault of the world. He’s talking about the miraculousness of moments of wonder and how it seems to be worth it, after all.