You are an artist when you make someone feel something deep and unexpected.

When you're an artist, nobody ever tells you or hits you with the magic wand of legitimacy. You have to hit your own head with your own handmade wand. And you feel stupid doing it.

If you love people enough, they will give you everything.

There's a fundamental disconnection in society in the way we live, this way we live that we take so for granted, and we've become very separate from one another and we don't really take lot of time to realize that. And the math is overwhelming to the point of despair, but the answers could be so simple.

If you come across an American artist right now who has no political opinions or is afraid of talking politics, be very concerned.

The impulse to connect the dots - and to share what you've connected - is the urge that makes you an artist

American culture in particular has instilled in us the bizarre notion that to ask for help amounts to an admission of failure. But some of the most powerful, successful, admired people in the world seem, to me, to have something in common: they ask constantly, creatively, compassionately, and gracefully. And to be sure: when you ask, there's always the possibility of a no on the other side of the request. If we don't allow for that no, we're not actually asking, we're either begging or demanding. But it is the fear of the no that keeps so many of our mouths sewn tightly shut.