There is a core of loneliness. It's partly existential. Secondly, I was raised a loner. My parents were not there. My father was asked to leave because he couldn't metabolize ethanol. Actually, my mother ran away with us when I was 2 months old and my brother was 5. Real dramatic stuff: down the fire escape, through backyards. So, I sort of raised myself. I was alone a lot and I invented myself - I lived through the radio and through my imagination.

I'm certainly a skeptic. I always quibble with people.

You know what I like about the American form of government? They've worked things out so that you're never far from a 7-Eleven.

If a painting can be forged well enough to fool experts, why is the original so valuable?

You live eighty years, and at best you get about six minutes of pure magic.

No, there's no God, but there might be some sort of an organizing intelligence, and I think to understand it is way beyond our ability. It's certainly not a judgmental entity. It's certainly not paternalistic and all these qualities that have been attributed to God.

I couldn't commit suicide if my life depended on it.