I was pushing myself to extremes in order to discover my many selves.

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.

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

The things I write are for those who are willing to accept a new relationship between the reader and the author.

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.

The planned sit-down reception is an artificial forum where one is presented with a limited number of persons with whom he can hold a conversation.

Mapplethorpe presented the body as a sexual object, separating it from the humanity of the person. He added nothing to photography as a medium. I hold his work in low regard.