He is mad about being small when you were big, but no, that's not it, he is mad about being helpless when you were powerful, but no, not that either, he is mad about being contingent when you were necessary, not quite it... he is insane because when he loved you, you didn't notice.

Is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said, no, life is that which gives meaning to life.

Art is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult, but because it wishes to be art.

Faint equivalents can sometimes be found ... . Or it can be rendered obliquely-an adolescent's mental image of his or her parents making love, which must be something on the order of crocodiles mating.

The not-knowing is crucial to art, is what permits art to be made. Without the scanning process engendered by not-knowing, without the possibility of having the mind move in unanticipated directions, there would be no invention.

And I sat there getting drunker and drunker and more in love and more in love.

I don’t think you can talk about progress in art—movement, but not progress.