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.

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 got over the loss of his desk and chair, but never the desire to produce a string of words more precious than the emeralds of Cortés.

I've embraced rock 'n' roll because it encompasses all the things I'm interested in: poetry, revolution, sexuality, political activism - all of these things can be found in rock 'n' roll. But I am also engaged in all of these things separately.

I learned from him that often contradiction is the clearest way to truth

I don't feel that censorship keeps me from doing the work, though. I'm my bigger censor.

Life is an adventure of our own design intersected by fate and a series of lucky and unlucky accidents.