“When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.”

“When I draw something, I try to build some kind of history into it. Drawing an object that has a certain amount of wear and tear or rust; or a tree that is damaged. I love trying to render not just the object, but what it has been through.”

“Love at first sight is easy to understand; it's when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.”

“Perhaps growing up meant we put our knives away and feigned ignorance of the damage.”

“In fact, we are often more interesting and sympathetic as human beings when something has gone wrong than when we are convinced of our own infallibility.”

“Often, what makes certain people particularly attractive to us is that when we are really with them we experience ourselves as being more whole.”

“If we read the Western Canon in order to form our social, political, or personal moral values, I firmly believe we will become monsters of selfishness and exploitation.”