I'd rather do anything than make commercial art. I didn't go to school for art. Making art has certain advantages for me but they would never be in commercial direction.

It's very rare that someone gets the death penalty for charges of conspiracy, for his influence, for his Svengali-Rasputin act.

Art can be a kind of therapeutic, or kind of a fantasy life, or wish fulfillment...o r creating this alternate universe. Art gives me the freedom to do that.

I'd rather do anything than make commercial art. I didn't go to school for art. Making art has certain advantages for me but they would never be in commercial direction.

It's an extreme to go from an artist like myself to a commercial artist with art directors looking over your shoulder, or any other knucklehead telling you what your art should look like.

It's possible to do your best work at your highest level without competing. I'm not anticompetition, but at an individual level, it can be degrading for both sides. And it doesn't have to be that way. I've done pretty well at getting past that sort of thing, and it's a relief not to have the rancor.

I'm not God, but I'm working within my own means as an artist and a person, and I possibly have more power than God does, in whatever form he has, if he exists, because I can work without the overarching ambition of wanting to rule over everything. I can work just for the heck of it.