I was in Paris at an English-language bookstore. I picked up a volume of Dickinson's poetry. I came back to my hotel read 2 000 of her poems and immediately began composing in my head. I wrote down the melodies even before I got to a piano.
My practicality consists in this in the knowledge that if you beat your head against the wall it is your head which breaks and not the wall - that is my strength my only strength.
