These things - the degree of vulnerability, the degree of skill, the degree of the longing to give - are influx all the time, And to lump all that under the word "creativity" assumes something much more static than it is. That's why an artist may be marvelous in her 20s, and be creating automatic crap in her 40s. A writer may be trivial in his 20s, and be writing incredibly in his 50s, because those things are always in flux.

Good is not the opposite of evil, joy is the opposite of evil.

That's what America's all about, man, if it's about anything. You can choose your own name.

I require and enforce as non-interrupted a state of living as you can get in America right now without going off to live by yourself in the mountains.

To be physically astute and psychologically tended, yet morally insulated and conceptually blind--is to be crazy, not healthy.

Creativity is the vulnerability to spiritual and physical sensation, and to experience, combined with and acting upon a certain level of skill, combined with the compulsion or longing or need or desire to give.

The world of psychology and the world of normal life tends to look down on obsession. It's not good for you, and certainly not good for your relationships. It's not good for a lot of things, but it's the only way to make a work of art.