I can't remember ever having a tragic demeanor. Although my life was tragedy.

It may be true that artists adopt a flamboyant appearance, but it's also true that people who look funny get stuck with the arts.

My outlook was so limited that I assumed that all deviates were openly despised and rejected. Their grief and their fear drew my melancholy nature strongly. At first I only wanted to wallow in their misery, but, as time went by, I longed to reach its very essence. Finally I desired to represent it. By this process I managed to shift homosexuality from being a burden to being a cause. The weight lifted and some of the guilt evaporated.

I never say 'No' to anything.

Most men when they make up their faces, the makeup stands forward, and their faces are behind.

Politics are not an instrument for effecting social change; they are the art of making the inevitable appear to be a matter of wise human choice.

All this cut-price transcendentalism does not prevent California from being a startlingly physical state. This becomes most obvious where Los Angeles saunters down to the sea. The region is called Venice.