It may be that it is not given to us to know when we are angels. We may only be given to know when others are. This may be one of the reasons we need each other so.

An artist without obsession isn't worth a damn!

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.

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.

Be careful how you choose your enemy, for you will come to resemble him. The moment you adapt your enemy's methods your enemy has won. The rest is suffering and historical opera.

I try to write into the heart of experience. Then, through the experience of the writing, that heart reveals itself to me. To write it down for others, as a door to go through it they choose, is the price of the experience, the price of the ticket. This is the demand that God, if you like, puts on you for being an artist.

The value of having an inner map of the world as it is (not as it's broadcast) is this: it allows you to know that your task is larger than yourself. If you choose, just by virtue of being a decent person, you are entrusted with passing on something of value through a dark, crazy time-preserving your integrity, in your way, by your acts and your very breathing for those who will build again when this chaos exhausts itself.