Even for a girl like me, then, there comes a day when she can stop surviving and start living. To survive, you have to look good or talk good. But to end your story well-- here is the truth-- you have to talk yourself out of it.

Life can't give to you if your hands are closed. Open your mind, open your heart, and open your arms.

We think of bulimia and anorexia as either a bizarre psychosis, or as a quirky little habit, a phase, or as a thing that women just do. We forget that it is a violent act, that it bespeaks a profound level of anger toward and fear of the self.

That's because you've never been one. You haven't spent years wearing someone else's clothes, taking someone else's name, living in someone else's houses, and working someone else's job to fit in. And if you don't sell out, then you run away... proving you're the Gypsy they said you were all along.

People spend a lifetime thinking abouthow they would really like to live. I asked my friends and no one seems to know very clearly. To me, it's very clear now. I wish my life could have been like the years when I was writing 'Love in the Time of Cholera.'

I would love to continue in music, with writing... but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don't need to be blonde when I'm 60!