I had met Michael Stipe, and he was such a kind person, and extremely understanding, so I asked him if he knew a photographer who would come to Detroit, where I lived, who would be child friendly and who would respect my home. Michael suggested Steven [ Sebring]. One day a knock came at my door, and when I opened it, there was Steven. He's been like a brother ever since.

I wasn't attractive, I wasn't very verbal, I wasn't very smart in school. I wasn't anything that showed the world I was something special, but I had this tremendous hope all the time. I had this tremendous spirit that kept me going... I was a happy child, because I had this feeling that I was going to go beyond my body physical... I just knew it.

I know fashion is a material thing, but we live in a material world and I love clothes.

To be an artist — actually, to be a human being in these times — it’s all difficult. … What matters is to know what you want and pursue it.

People say the media is feeding the public's hunger for celebrity news, but that's the drug pusher's mentality. I don't think anybody would be pining for news about Angelina Jolie's babies if it weren't being given to them in the first place.

As a child I was such an intense daydreamer; I could be so gone that I had to be smacked to come back. They were really worried that I had some kind of catatonia or something because I would go so far out. Because all I wanted to do was talk to god as a child.

Sometimes you write passages that don't need to be rewritten. Performance is that for me. Improvisation, things that happen in the moment, are sometimes wonderful, or wonderful as a moment to be shared between performer and people, but that's it. There might be a strong bond between you and the people, a transformative night, but as a live record it might not translate.