When I was a kid, I loved Sherlock Holmes. I'm not interested in crimes. I'm interested in the mind of the detective and his process, which to me is a lot like the artist.

My mother answers all my fan mail.

I hate to be enclosed. I don't like bathroom doors - I don't shut them. In fact, in my house, I have no doors.

I'm right here right now and I want now to be the Golden Age ...if only each generation would realize that the time for greatness is right now when they're alive ... the time to flower is now.

I wanted to see who this Yeats person was, and I said to my mother, 'I want a book by this person.' And she bought it for me, and a lot of it was over my head, but I had it.

I had a really happy childhood - my siblings were great, my mother was very fanciful, and I loved to read. But there was always financial strife.

I don't know why, the very first word on my very first record is 'Jesus.' I still invoke him as an entity to reckon with.