I hated to fight all the time just to enjoy my day. Fighting wasn't the kind of thing that I enjoyed, but I grew to enjoy it because I did it so long.

I'm a happy man because whatever I'm doing, I do for myself and I do a little creating here and there for others, and they work out very well.

I was being brought up on peasant stories; my mother came from Europe and she'd been a peasant and that was the area where the Frankensteins and the Draculas came from and it was entertainment for the people. Nobody had TV, and that was the way peasants would entertain themselves, by telling these stories.

There was violence because first of all, there were ethnic differences and names. If you were small, they called you a runt, and you had to do something about that even if there were five other guys.

It's not in the draftsmanship, it's in the man. Like I say, a tool is dead. A brush is a dead object. It's in the man. If you want to do it, you do it.

I would've liked to have been a better businessman when I was younger. And of course, I couldn't, because it wasn't part of my atmosphere. I never lived with accountants, I never lived with lawyers.

There was one time they knocked me out and laid me in front of my mother's door. And in order for my mother not to be shocked they readjusted my clothes and they saw that nothing was rumpled and I looked very comfortable next to the apartment door, so when my mother would open the door it wouldn't be that much of a shock.