“Acceptance is the truest kinship with humanity.”

“There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right it is the ideal American who is all wrong.”

“The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them.”

“Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers.”

“The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.”

“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.”

“To create art with all the passion in one's soul is to live art with all the beauty in one's heart.”

“art is risk made visible”

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

“The best incentive for an artist are the harshest criticism”

“I have no idea how to be an artist and a lover, so I chose the one most likely to make me happy when I'm eighty and gazing back on a long and productive life.”

“Artists strive to free this true and spontaneous self in their work. Creativity, meditation are ways of freeing an inner voice.”