When I began competing with the other artists in New York, I discovered classical North Indian music.

When somebody says that all statements are false, the obvious problem is that as an assertion it's self-defeating.

Rock became an incredible commercial success, people just became bored with serious music, and it was forgotten.

In classical oil painting, there seemed to be a radical turn to seeing things as the camera sees them, with that technological modification. I began to have a tremendous problem with all of this.

Around 1967 I began backing away from dogmatic Leninism, not so much because I thought it was false, I just decided there was nothing utopian about it.

At the same time, I was listening to black music, and I began to think that the best musicians were receiving the worst treatment. The people who were doing the greatest work were despised as lower class, with no dignity accorded to what they did.

I'm actually a great fan of lucidity.