“You can't make people love you the way you want to be loved. I can only be responsible for my clear, honest, and timely communication and state my needs and expectations and hope for the best.”

“One thing I've learned is that grace and patience go hand in hand. Not only is it something to give out, but it's also something to receive for yourself. I've definitely learned to give a lot more grace and patience to myself, which I didn't really know how to do. I didn't know that was something that you should do within yourself.”

"I booked a show, felt accomplished, and then everything shut down. And for the first time, I was like, "I don't feel like I'm falling behind. I don't feel like I'm not doing enough because nothing's happening." And it was the biggest relief of my life."

"I think as a country, as the world, as the human race, we need to start talking more about our mental health, and I think this whole experience has really brought that out in some people, including me."

“I guess I go around living, not really knowing how much the pandemic affects us, and then it builds up over time. Then you're on the couch and you're like, "Why? Why does everything feel so awful?"“

“I have loved having early, slow mornings with puzzles and my books, and I have cookbooks now that I love, and I've tried new things that I hadn't before. Slowing down has been really trying for me, so finding these things that do take a lot of patience, like a new recipe or a thousand-piece puzzle, has been helping my mind stay a bit more stable. And finding all these new routines. It blows me away how fast everything used to be.”

“I'll walk away. There is a strength and encouragement that a lot of artists have — the awareness that I can walk away. There's people who want stuff to burn down. I'm not for that. I want to see you change. Because if you burn it down, what comes after that?”

“If I'm being optimistic, I will say that we will take with us a better sense of being intentional and pausing before we react, pausing before we think, pausing before we engage on certain things. I think the notion of taking a breath and pausing that the whole world had to do for at least a short time — I feel like that didn't last as long as we thought it might.”

“I've never been this stressed out before in my life.”

“We have to be kind. One of the things I learned, or that I thought about when Alan Stiefel passed away was how, in every situation — didn't matter what was going on — he was consistently, unfailingly kind. That is what I most admire in him. So why don't I try to emulate some of that? I try to be kind, but it was such a reminder of just how important it is. It's the most important thing.”

“You don't have any footing. You don't know when your jobs are coming back. The world is in turmoil. People are dying. People you love are sick. You can't do the things you're good at. You're not finding joy in the things you can do that you used to enjoy doing. What is the point of all this? How long is this going to go on? And is this now a forever thing?”

“I was just so disgusted by some people's reactions.”

“I'll be honest with you, I have a tendency toward getting really blue and I think we all keep that on the down low. “

“I identify myself as an artist and I'm not making art. I'm not doing anything at all, and I miss that world.”

“Yes, as someone who has an anxious personality, something like a pandemic can make or break you, and I think I was very nervous it was going to break me or bring out parts of my personality that I try to keep hidden and I wouldn’t be able to keep hidden very well.”

“I don't even know what that means... to go back.”

“I made a pearl-encrusted eye patch and I stripped and repainted our coffee table. I was trying to feel like I was actually accomplishing things, but when it became apparent that there was no end in sight, it became really, really hard to feel like anything I did mattered or that there was going to eventually be a cessation and then a return to "normal life." I think we all understand now that our concept of normal is moot now. It no longer applies.”

“I should've seen that coming. I should have seen that end happening.”

“…the way that people talk about Black Lives Matter and the protests and stuff is like it just started, when it's been around. It's just started for some of you guys…”

“I'm spending a lot of time feeling love in the ways that I receive love.”