We have a culture that is indirect in the extreme, where by the time you're five years old, you've watched tons of television, and have been subjected to what I call "the age of interruption," where everything is interrupted every minute. We have constant input from TV, computers, fax machines, telephones, etc. It's very hard for a modern American to have two hours of uninterrupted time. I know how it is because I insist on several hours of uninterrupted time each day, and I know how ruthless I have to be to get it.

Creativity is an innate function in a human being, as we see in tribal peoples, who spent their considerable leisure time making religious artifacts and sacred art. That is what I would call a direct culture, in that everybody in it is directly in touch with all the elements, both of the culture and of the environment.

People are judged continuously everywhere on the most intimate level by the prices on their head. Most of them accept the judgment. It's very hard to have self-respect, or to maintain a state of creativity under these conditions.

The people you have to lie to, own you. The things you have to lie about, own you.

The element of obsession is terribly important for an artist.

Our choices are truncated in evil's presence.

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.