What a model of an artist was for me was an artist who worked. Picasso was the ultimate model, because the work ethic he had.

I'm more concerned with the work people do than their gender. When I was younger, I was pretty judgmental. Things had to be a certain way. Now I just want to see the work. It doesn't matter who does it.

For I desired, as Youth does, to be taken by the hand and hurled into the world.

Who can know the heart of youth but youth itself?

My parents had three kids right after the Second World War, and we were all sort of sickly. Then I had a fourth sibling, with very serious asthma. The medical bills... So my parents always struggled.

I always wanted to be an artist, writer and poet since I was seven, and one has to live long enough to evolve as an artist and do one's finest work.

Life isn't some vertical or horizontal line -- you have your own interior world, and it's not neat.