“I believe that most of us construct a merciful deception between ourselves and the consequences of our existence in order that we do not succumb to despair.”

“At Sunday worship, as in every dimension of our existence, many of us pretend to believe we are sinners. Consequently, all we can do is pretend we have been forgiven. As a result, our whole spiritual life is pseudo-repentance and pseudo-bliss.”

“The artist's job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.”

“Deception is mostly a game we play with ourselves.”

“If you asked me what makes the world go round, I would say self-deception. Self-deception allows us to create a consistent narrative for ourselves that we actually believe. I’m not saying that the truth doesn’t matter. It does. But self-deception is how we survive.”

“I realize that a certain school of thoughtsays that who we are is something we construct for ourselves. We build ourselves out of what we think we remember, what we believe to be true about our life; and the possessions we gather around us are supposedly a part of this, that we are, to some extent what we own.”