Art is always about overcoming obstacles between the inner condition and the skill for expression.

Many people I know - writers, poets - they have all been sentenced not once but sometimes three times after they come out. They serve five or six years, come out another time, and then nine years. Come out again, 12 years. Only because they have a different opinion. They are innocent people, they have beautiful minds, beautiful hearts.

Society becomes very destructive.

Any individual can contribute its own belief. And our society or even our government are made by the people. The people would have the final voice, but it requires each individual to act. If we don't act, then the result is very clear. So for too long Americans take liberty as granted. We think we are in the safe hand, the democracy and the liberty, which is not true. And it can be even getting much worse than today.

Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward.

I never really read Allen Ginsberg poetry, even though I have a book he gave me.

I don't personally feel any association with a kind of culture related to state, or culture related to power, which I think is always disgusting.