And so, little by little, I gradually divested myself of pretty nearly all of the guest conducting I used to do, because I was at the same time working in the places like the Met, where I could work in this sort of depth.
I keep one simple rule that I only move in one direction - I write the book straight through from beginning to end. By following time's arrow, I keep myself sane.
Because I'm so busy and because I think of myself as a painter, I desperately guard the time that I have to paint. And sometimes I'm irresponsible to my career in order to paint. Because painting is obsessive. I forget to eat. I forget to sleep.
All this time I lived with my parents, and wrought on the plantation; and having had schooling pretty well for a planter, I used to improve myself in winter evenings, and other leisure times.
I have a very hard time picturing myself in a room with some type of goo oozing out of an air vent and killing me; that doesn't really scare me because I don't think that's going to happen to me.
My process is to be by myself when I record. It's quite an emotional performance to pull off when someone else is in the room. I prefer to go away and have my own time with it, bring it in later.
But for me to have the opportunity to stand in front of a bunch of executives and present myself, I had to hustle in my own way. I can't tell you how frustrating it was that they didn't get that. No joke - I'd leave meetings crying all the time.
As a mother I think you often get so caught up in trying to take care of everyone else that you forget to take care of yourself. But I'm a much better wife and mother when I take the time to take care of myself.
During the day I force myself to at least eat some salads rather than rubbish, and a steak in the evening. In fact, I eat to basically satisfy my hunger. I hardly have the time to appreciate a meal, and I'm everything, but a gourmet.
I had to wait for a long time before I could support myself with writing. However, being a writer is what I have most wanted to be, from the time I was a child.
Who is happy with his appearance? I find many drawbacks of myself. But, each time when I visit Lourdes, I receive a lesson of reconciliation. When you see ill people or invalids around, you realize that it is a sin to complain!
I'm a perfectionist, so I can drive myself mad - and other people, too. At the same time, I think that's one of the reasons I'm successful. Because I really care about what I do.
I used to go online all the time, and then I had to stop myself... because I'm a writer, and it's like: to have a procrastination tool, like, within my computer... it was just getting too hairy.
I've definitely been in situations where I could tell someone was interested in me, but I could tell they were insulting me in some passive/aggressive way, so I felt bad about myself at the same time.
It's kind of weird, because I look at myself as just a normal person. My friends get rejected all the time, so why shouldn't I? I don't think I'm anything special.
It's important that I get time to run, to just go for a jog for about 30 minutes. It helps with my voice, but it also kind of gives me a little bit of time to myself - and you get to see a city.
I suppose there must be some way in which I'm compelled to show some side of myself - or of people - that's paranoid and fraught and beleaguered and downtrodden, just as Tom Cruise wants to show that he's terrifyingly upbeat and terrifyingly heroic a...
When I present or speak, I write the slides myself. And regarding time, I would like to be able to publish more than I do.
All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, This is when I became myself.
Why does my brain insist on counting the steps every time I walk up a flight of stairs? I just can't help myself. There's something about my mind that always wants to keep counting.
In a way, I pattern myself after all the bands I used to like as a kid. Every time they put out LPs, they had a whole new look and a new sound.
