I believe only in art and failure.

I was very frightened when I turned forty. I suddenly thought I ought to wake up and be speaking with the voice of God.

Every artist seems to me to have the job of bearing witness to the world we live in. To some extent I think of all of us as artists, because we have voices and we are each of us unique.

People genuinely happy in their choices seem less often tempted to force them on other people than those who feel martyred and broken by their lives.

This desert town was man's own miracle of pure purposelessness.

If we don't bear witness as citizens, as people, as individuals, the right that we have had to life is sacrificed. There is a silence, instead of a speaking presence.

I didn't want to be a boy, ever, but I was outraged that his height and intelligence were graces for him and gaucheries for me.