There is some suffering that awaits us all.

The creative act is also in a small way a suffering act - we start out with our ego, this hope of making this thing whatever it be, but so often it eludes us and it collapses and we kind of regress into this mental suffering, we can't find what we're looking for.

When the heart is cut or cracked or broken Do not clutch it Let the wound lie open Let the wind from the good old sea blow in to bathe the wound with salt and let it sting. Let a stray dog lick it Let a bird fly in the hole and sing a simple song like a tiny bell and let it ring.

Sometimes I wonder if the semi-conscious agenda of the media is to get between people and their souls. It is the the soul with its myriad tiny nerve endings that notices the neglected pathos, poignancy and practicality that lies at the heart of life. It's as if the media are somehow irritated and envious that anonymous people should have the quiet brilliance of their rich and sustainable inner lives.

There was all this loneliness in my cartoons and people would say, "Gee, these characters are so lonely, disconnected, depressed." And I'd say, 'Yeah well, that's not me. I'm just interested in that because I think it makes a funny drawing.' But later I understood it was me in many respects; my hand was doing it ahead of the head's understanding.

For me, spirit is the impulse towards life, the Eros in a person leaping forward, whereas soul refers to something possibly long.. suffering, where meanings are made, where there is a sense of this gathering of perceptions, that our death is not the most important thing, nor our life.

Ah, whimsical. It's terrible the way words get attached to you like barnacles. As is what I do is acting on a 'whim'. If only these were gifts from God when I get an idea, but everything I have done that I really love has had a lot of hard work behind it.