Giving anyone anything takes courage, since so many presents backfire. A gift conspicuously at odds with your tastes serves only to betray that the benefactor has no earthly clue who you are.

A lot of people get so hung up on what they can't have that they don't think for a second about whether they really want it.

You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her.

My own apathy is bone chilling.

In a country that doesn't discriminate between fame and infamy, the latter presents itself as plainly more achievable.

Funny how you dig yourself into a hole by the teaspoon.

It's far less important to me to be liked these days than to be understood.

But what's so great about being a perfectionist?... You do all this work, and then the stuff you've made just pisses you off.

Reading time is precious. Don't waste it. Reading bad books, or books that are wrong for a certain time in your life, can dangerously turn you off the activity altogether.

The Web, the great time-killer that had replaced conspicuously passive television with its seductive illusion of productivity.

Life is never easy so that is why I never lie about my age. I want credit for every damned year.

Unless one lives and loves in the trenches, it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless.

Haunted trees covered behind the curtains of their own leaves stare at the dark from the fringe of streets.

Maybe not, maybe not. Cheer up, Becky, and let's go on trying.

Fear, doubt, and lack are things we must talk about to emerge as associations that thrive for years to come.

My wife has a black belt in shopping.

I always try to be alert to the potential for repetition, for a decaying orbit with regard to my use of technique, etc.

Death and adversity come to us all, but so does life everlasting!

But the English are different, and they don't know how to be other than different.

An individual, thinking himself injured, makes more noise than a State.

I had to learn to do stuff only for myself, and stop thinking about pleasing some imaginary client or boss. It's a habit that many artists get into that have worked in commercial ventures.