We're a culture more than ever that wants proof of everything, we want things fast, and someone sends you an email, you want to answer in five minutes. We have to allow ourselves nothingness, in our relationships too.

I wasn't taking drugs or drinking. I was working and working and working. But I wasn't writing anything.

Talking to god and coming back because that's what we have to do. That's your responsibility as a director, as an artist, as a performer. Your responsibility is back again to your people.

I wrote every day. I don't think I could have written Just Kids had I not spent all of the 80s developing my craft as a writer.

I think really that's just the basic Christian lesson that sometimes takes us years and years to understand - have equal concern for another human being as you have for yourself or perhaps even more concern for another human being than you have for yourself.

I didn't want any middle-of-the-road creep. I always wanted the toughest guy in school, the guy from south Philly who wore tight black pants. Y'know, the guy who carried the umbrella and wore white shirts with real thin black ties. I was really nuts over this guy named Butchie Magic 'cause he let me carry his switchblade.

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