My parents inspired me by their example. They both grew up in the Depression, and both of them had to quit school when they were quite young to work, because there actually was no choice. So they've always impressed me with their resilience, their good spirits, their courage. I just remember them carrying on and just doing their lives. They really made a strong impression on me.

The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to "overcome" doubt.

The great happiness in life in creativity belongs to amateurs.

... such speculation is like staring into the hot white sun. you know the sun is there but you can't see a thing.

A mouth of no distinction but well practiced, before I entered my teens, in irony. For what is irony but the repository of hurt? And what is hurt but the repository of hope?

Perhaps the inevitable tragedy of our complex civilization is that we must be specialists in our fields - and our fields have become increasingly difficult, so that communication is nearly impossible.

Without craft, art remains private. Without art, craft is merely hackwork.