I think much has been made of this alter ego business. I mean, I actually stopped creating characters in 1975 - for albums, anyway.

I'm a phallus in pigtails, and there's blood on my nose, and my tissue is rotting where the rats chew my bones. And my eye sockets empty, see nothing but pain, I keep having this brainstorm about twelve times a day.

It's almost a social grace to get into the art world, and I'm very wary of it. Art was good in Berlin in the late '70s - there was a lot more guts to art when the Neo-Expressionists were starting up; it was real slapdash; it has real heart to it - but it seems so cold and heartless in America. It's a buyer's market.

I think getting married and then running away for 10 months would be an absolute disaster.

We see each other [ with Iman Abdulmajid] a lot. I couldn't stand to be separated for months. It became quickly apparent to me that I needed to find a balance between my absolute work obsession and a private life that we could share without my disappearing all the time.

I don't like people probing into my life, so I reveal as little as possible or lie about it as much as need be so as to give them something to write about.

I turned myself to face me, but I've never caught a glimpse of how the others must see the faker.