“Writers want to summarize: What does this mean? What did we learn from...” — Laurie Anderson Quote

“Writers want to summarize: What does this mean? What did we learn from this? That's a very 19th-century way of thinking about art, because it assumes that it should make our lives better or teach us something.”

“I hate zoos.”

“I think women are excellent social critics.”

“The way I was brought up in improv was that any idea you have is not as good as your partner's idea, so if I see someone else initiating at the same time I am, I just defer to them because I assume their idea is going be better. And hopefully, they're doing the same with me.”

“We tend to assume that we have a baseline of speech that's going to be normal in all contexts, but the truth is, we all change our ways of speaking depending on who we're talking to. And so I think it's kind of a gesture of politeness to the people you're speaking to to try to say something in their own idiom.”