I believe myself to be an artist. That was my calling, to do my work, and what's most important to me is to do the best work I possibly can. And that is what means the most, that is what will endure.

I feel about politics the same way I do about religion: I find the best I can from different things.

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

I have seen a lifetime of transgender people and it was hard enough being gay in the '50s and early '60s. One couldn't imagine the cruelty that trans people had to face back then.

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

We never had any children," he said ruefully. "Our work was our children.

An artist wears his work in place of wounds.