I think most artists create out of despair. The very nature of creation is not a performing glory on the outside, it's a painful, difficult search within.

It gave me great pleasure to think that I could take wood, make it good, and make people like Rockefeller buy it with paper money.

I think that in the sexual act, as delightful as it can be, the very physical part of it is, yes, a hammering away. So it has a certain brutality.

I believe that the physical is the geography of the being.

I make collages. I join the shattered world creating a new harmony.

Another thing about creation is that every day it is like it gave birth, and it's always kind of an innocent and refreshing. So it's always virginal to me, and it's always a surprise. ... Each piece seems to have a life of its own. Every little piece or every big piece that I make becomes a very living thing to me, very living. I could make a million pieces; the next piece gives me a whole new thing. It is a new center. Life is total at that particular time. And that's why it's right. That reaffirms my life.

If you have got a living force and you're not using it, nature kicks you back. The blood boils just like you put it in a pot.