We go through life. We shed our skins. We become ourselves.

I wasn't taking drugs or drinking. I was working and working and working. But I wasn't writing anything.

I immersed myself in books and rock 'n' roll, the adolescent salvation.

Sometimes you're doing really well, then, after three or four years, everything inexplicably crashes like a house of cards and you have to rebuild it. It's not like you get to a point where you're all right for the rest of your life.

My father hated rock and roll - hated it. My first real argument with my father was over the Rolling Stones. And he never, ever liked rock and roll. He just liked me.

If you over-plan, you close the door on possibilities.

He found it was as easy to hurl beauty as anything else. (On Robert Mapplethorpe)