People either hate me or dislike me - but I realized that people aren't against you, they are for themselves. We're all prejudiced in favor of ourselves.

Self-pity is the most destructive of all narcotics.

But really death seems the least awful thing that can happen to someone

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

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?

Unhappiness lies in that gap between our talents and our expectations.

I am not an intellectual. An intellectual is someone who looks at a sausage and thinks of Picasso, whereas I just say 'pass the mustard'.