“People only see in us the contemptible skirt-fever which rules our actions but completely miss the beauty-hunger underlying it.”

“For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life; in this way, not to evade destiny, as do the ordinary people, but to fulfill it in i...”

“I suppose the secret of his success is in his tremendous idleness which almost approaches the supernatural.”

“Underneath an artist's preoccupations with sex, society, religion, etc. (all the staple abstractions that allow the forebrain to chatter) there is a soul tortured beyond endurance by the lack of te...”

“Artthe meaning of the pattern of our common actions in reality. The cloth-of-gold that hides behind the sackcloth of reality, forced out by the pain of human memory.”

“Poverty is a great cutter-off and riches a great shutter-off.”

“Every evil starts with 15 volts.”

“My feeling about work is that it's an unnecessary evil, so I've always done my best to avoid it.”

“Neither love nor evil conquers all, but evil cheats more.”

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”

“If I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and t...”

“I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and ...”