The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke.

It is possible to stand around with a cocktail in one's hand and talk with everyone, which means with no one.

Here was one place where I could find out who I was and what I was going to become. And that was the public library.

There are many types of participation. One can observe so intensely that one becomes part of the action, but without being an active participant.

Can the imagination, any more than the boy, be held prisoner ?" - from the foreword to the 1976 edition of "The Painted Bird

As I go to sleep I remember what my father said-that one can never be sure if one will awake. The way my health is now, this is becoming more and more real.

A trait which differentiated New York from European cities was the incredible freedom and ease in which life, including sexual life, could be carried on, on many levels.