I was attacked by two dogs when I was three and a half years old. I'm lucky to be alive. My face was stitched back together and here I still am, gratefully so. I believe that experience shocked me into a deep alliance with the animal world, its beauty and viciousness and terror.

I'm filled with despair. We live in a pathological culture filled with rage and bitterness and greed. The hate-mongering and racism is reaching a frightening pitch.

I came to teaching late - not until my forties - which is one reason why I'm not burned out.

I'm interested in thinking about how are we contributing to the culture, what we can write that might help us deepen the culture, make us more reflective, make us more empathetic, make us feel our connectedness in other ways.

I'm always trying to ask myself both "Who am I as an individual?" and "What are the cultural forces that have made me the person that I am?" How can I understand myself as a cultural creature as well as an individual? I'm really obsessed with that question, and always asking my students to consider it.

Life seems complicated to me; I feel confused a lot of the time by life. I feel confused about the fact that we can be so tender as creatures to one another, and so monstrous at the same time.

One needs to be on guard against expecting external powers to decide when you can take yourself seriously as an artist. It can be a long wait - and lead to endless appetite.