I suspect that many of the great cultural shifts that prepare the way for political change are largely aesthetic.

I feel that the surrealists have created a series of valid external landscapes which have their direct correspondences within our own minds.

The ultimate concept car will move so fast, even at rest, as to be invisible.

Surrender to a logic more powerful than reason.

All over the world major museums have bowed to the influence of Disney and become theme parks in their own right. The past, whether Renaissance Italy or Ancient Egypt, is re-assimilated and homogenized into its most digestible form. Desperate for the new, but disappointed with anything but the familiar, we recolonize past and future. The same trend can be seen in personal relationships, in the way people are expected to package themselves, their emotions and sexuality, in attractive and instantly appealing forms.

I don't think any particular painters have inspired me, except in a general sense. It was more a matter of corroboration. The visual arts, from Manet onwards, seemed far more open to change and experiment than the novel, though that's only partly the fault of the writers. There's something about the novel that resists innovation.

If you can smell garlic, everything is all right.