“It's been said that the role of the artist is to teach us to see and that's true. However, the role of other artists is to teach me how they see. To learn how I see is somethig that cannot be taught but must be learned.”

“The key is to integrate our art into our life, not the other way around.”

“For two extraordinary years I have been working on it - learning to write - but mostly learning how to tell the truth. At first it is quite impossible. You make yourself better than anybody, then worse than anybody, and when you finally come to see you are 'like' everybody - that is the bitterest blow of all to the ego. But in the end it is only the truth, no matter how ugly or shameful, that is right, that fits together, that makes real people, and strangely enough - beauty...”

“The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.”

“The walls in front of us are not there to keep us from achieving our desire. They are there to see how bad we want what we desire.”

“She may not be able to teach the baby how to cook, but she could teach the child how to shoot a gun and how to disarm a man when being attacked with a knife. You never knew when those things could come in handy.”

“In sum, one of the primary things I learned was how to kill time. I learned also to wish away my life. I learned to give myself away.”