A writer, or any artist, can’t expect to be embraced by the people [but] you just keep doing your work - because you have to, because it’s your calling.

I like my time on earth. And no matter what kind of cards I've been dealt, I'm happy to be there.

I thought to myself that he contained a whole universe that I had yet to know.

People like beauty and purity. They pretend that's what it's all about.

I refuse to believe that Hendrix had the last possessed hand, that Joplin had the last drunken throat, that Morrison had the last enlightened mind.

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.

The whole process of working with Steven [Sebring] and being filmed by him helped me psychologically to get my feet back on the ground.