I believe art has to take responsibility but it should not give up being art.

I might have been born into a very literal sense of chaos, but in fact that state is true of all of us.

If I do something that depresses, it's not because I'm depressed, but because political life and history is depressing.

I was interested in transcendence from a very early age. I was interested in what was over there, what was behind life. So when I had my first communion I was very disappointed. I had expected something amazing and surprising and spiritual. Instead all I got was a bicycle. That wasn't what I was after at all.

Life is an illusion. I am held together in the nothingness by art.

Art is longing. You never arrive, but you keep going in the hope that you will.

As a child I had no toys; our house was bombed, but there were lots of bricks. Ruins are wonderful because they are the beginning of something new, you can do something with them.