“So, your Socially Intelligent and altruistic behaviour doesn’t justbenefit your friends and colleagues; you benefit too. If you leave peopleon a high note, you leave yourself on that same high note! You thusfeed your own memory banks with wonderful and uplifting memories,as well as boosting your own resistance to stress, illness and disease.BUT REMEMBER: The opposite is also true …If you leave your friends, lovers and colleagues on antagonistic andunpleasant notes, you help them to flood their own bodies withpoisons that leave them physically unbalanced, their immune systemsweakened, and their memories fouled.And you do the same to yourself!The choice is yours …”

“When you start working, everybody is in your studio- the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, your own ideas- all are there. But as you continue painting, they start leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you are lucky, even you leave.”

“...if your friend knows you at all, she is being rude by pressuring you to do something that is bad for you. Yes, bad for you. Engaging in a painful activity that leaves you feeling crummy about yourself is self-destructive. But your friend is probably not a jerk—you wouldn’t have chosen her for a friend if she were. She’s just following the social rules. And you may be following them too.”

“Your youth is the most important thing you will ever have. It's when you will connect to music like a primal urge, and the memories attached to the songs will never leave you. Please hold on to everything. Keep every note, mix tape, concert ticket stub, and memory you have of music from your youth. It'll be the one thing that might keep you young, even if you aren't anymore.”

“Some memories remain close; you can shut your eyes and find yourself back in them. But there are second-person memories, too, distant you memories, and these are trickier: you watch yourself in disbelief.”

“All the shitty stuff people do to themselves... it can all be the same thing, you know? Just a way to drown out your own voice. To kill your memories without having to kill yourself.”