“Naturally, I have no heroes: I am my heroes. I am my brothers and sisters. I feel myself joined by the soul with all beauty. My heart sings with every brave endeavour. With the strange wings of impossible butterflies, with every rock that breathes life into the world. I stand shoulder to shoulder with all denouncers of meanness. I honour spirit and faith and uphold the glorious amateur. I'm in love with desperate men with desperate hands, walking in second-hand shoes searching for God and hearing God and hating God. I'm a desperate man, buckled with fear, I am a desperate man who demands to be listened to, who demands to connect. I'm a desperate man who denounces the dullness of money and status. I'm a desperate man who will not bow down to accolade or success. I'm a desperate man who loves the simplicity of painting and hates galleries and white walls and the dealers in art. Who loves unreasonableness and hotheadedness, who loves contradiction, hates publishing houses and also I am Vincent Van Gogh, Hiroshige and every living artist who dares to draw God on this planet.”

“I would rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I'm not.”

“I don't want him to think I'm crazy, because I'm not. Desperate is what I am. Quietly desperate and insatiably curious.”

“On the streets of the city They have taken my Who-I-Am As well as my What-I-Was And now I am desperate for them both Again”

“Am I so desperate I must accept any gentleman who is not a villain or a gargoyle?”

“I'm at a loss because I am in love with a man who is standing before me with no memories of me at all. (Time Traveler's Wife)”

“If you asked me now who I am, the only answer I could give with any certainty would be my name. For the rest: my loves, my hates, down even to my deepest desires, I can no longer say whether these emotions are my own, or stolen from those I once so desperately wished to be.”