Getting old is horrible, but it is interesting . . . one of the things I've realized is that growing old is compulsory, but growing up is optional.

An artist has to go to every extreme, to stretch his sensibility through excess and suffering in order to feel and to communicate more. I have always been fascinated by blood. Pain can be vitalizing; it gives intensity in the place of vagueness and emptiness. If we don't suffer, how do we know that we live?

My one concession to American sensibilities was to remove my nail polish.

My only criticism about Quentin Crisp is that the subversive must be ready to subvert themselves. I may dress for myself, but I undress for everybody else, whereas he never did that - he was never prepared to drop a bomb on everything he did.

Being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which psychoanalysis is powerless to bestow.

It's better to be quotable than honest, I don't speak, I quote. I am a fraud. I have cobbled together my personality from hundreds of little bits. I am simultaneously the most genuine and the most artificial person you will ever meet.

We build our character as a carapace to keep away the fear of the abyss. That's what our character is for.