His [Andy warhol] films were way ahead of the times...and I'm not suggesting this has all necessarily been a good thing for America, mind you. I kind of think we're all in a really big mess, kind of like the end days of the Roman Empire.

He was, as Billy Name said in the acclaimed Ric Burns documentary about Andy Warhol, uninterested in being a second-tier artist. He was uninterested in being a first-tier artist! He wanted to be, you know, a god. Someone who completely changed the...he wanted to be Zeus with the lightning bolt and nothing less would have satisfied him.

Diana Vreeland was "the Empress," the avatar of the age. An old name or old money were not enough to get you into Studio 54 - or Interview magazine, for that matter. You had to have a lot of something else, like looks or brains or wit or fabulous clothes.

Anyway, when I finished the book, I handed it in, didn't want to read it again, but when it finally was in print I felt like OK, I have to read this. And yeah, I thought God, this is petty, this is silly, too emotional, too raw...and maybe it was then, but now it all seems that it's so much better because all the stuff that felt petty and silly now seems more relevant because Andy was so important.

I think his portraits of Jackie, Liz, Marilyn, Mao, Elvis, Lenin - and objects like the soup cans, the dollar signs, the hammer and sickle, it's all about icons. Its all about what people worship in an irreligious or secular world. In terms of Andy's personality and Andy Warhol as a human being who I was very close to, I still feel kind of sorry for him on a personal level. I mean, he was the ultimate example of great success wrapped around inner turmoil and emotional pain.

I don't think he'd [Andy Warhol] be that amazed because he was so driven to be the Picasso of the second half of the 20th century.

You can't hang around geniuses forever because they end up taking everything you've got. That's why they're the genius and you're not.