That's what artists do, that's what poets do - we all do it. We start with something, and sometimes we destroy everything that we've made in order to get to the core place where we started from.

I was so used to doing art that my fingers were like albino spiders. So it was just natural for me to go to a typewriter and write poetry.

I think the film [Dream of Life] is life-affirming.

The film [Dream of Life] is not really an amateur work, despite the fact that none of us have ever done anything like this before; aesthetically, none of us are amateurs.

Grief isn't all tears.

As an artist, I used to think that my responsibility was to do good work. But I had to learn from the 70s on that being a public figure presents another aspect of responsibility.

I had no proof that I had the stuff to be an artist, though I hungered to be one.