When I was home, traditionally since I was young, I'd write in cafés. That was the romantic notion in 1963. Café atmospheres back then were different. The café life really stemmed from the Parisians' idea of it, with poets struggling over their poems and drinking coffee. No music, no sounds, maybe a little jazz, or soul, but mostly nothing. Now you go into a café and the music is really loud, people are having business meetings, they are on their cellphones. It changes from generation to generation.

Vowels are the most illuminated letters in the alphabet. Vowels are the colors and souls of poetry and speech. (1976 Penthouse interview)

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.

Some of us are born rebellious. Like Jean Genet or Arthur Rimbaud, I roam these mean streets like a villain, a vagabond, an outcast, scavenging for the scraps that may perchance plummet off humanity's dirty plates, though often sometimes taking a cab to a restaurant is more convenient.

Sometimes I just wanted to raise my hands and stop. But stop what? Maybe just growing up.

Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand.

Robert was concerned with how to make the photograph, and I with how to be the photograph.