What helps me is watching other people negotiate loss. I think about how we dropped a bomb on people in Hiroshima and 150,000 people were killed in one night. Those people had to mourn and they had to rebuild their city right away.

To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It's freedom.

When I perform, I always opt for communication with God, and in pursuit of communicating with God, you can enter some very dangerous territory. I also have come to realize that total communication with God is physical death.

We were walking toward the fountain, the epicenter of activity, when an older couple stopped and openly observed us. Robert enjoyed being noticed, and he affectionately squeezed my hand. "oh, take their picture," said the woman to her bemused husband, "I think they're artists." "Oh, go on," he shrugged. "They're just kids.

I'm not really a nostalgic person.

The moment of creative impulse is what an artist gives you. You look at a Pollock, and it can't give you the tools to do a painting like that yourself, but in doing the work, Pollock shares with you the moment of creative impulse that drove him to do that work.

What will happen to us?" I asked. "There will always be us," he answered.