If social protest is antithetical to art, what then shall we make of Goya, Dickens, and Twain?

So why do I write, torturing myself to put it down? Because in spite of myself I've learned some things. Without the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled "file and forget," and I can neither file nor forget. Nor will certain ideas forget me; they keep filing away at my lethargy, my complacency. Why should I be the one to dream this nightmare?

Man's hope can paint a purple picture, can transform a soaring vulture into a noble eagle or moaning dove.

It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves.

I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

I was never more hated than when I tried to be honest. Or when, even as just now I've tried to articulate exactly what I felt to be the truth. No one was satisfied

God is love, I said, but art's the possibility of forms, and shadows are the source of identity.