I've been slagged off completely by the art world and I don't know whether fancy being slagged off by the literary world as well. It's just too much.

Art is like a lover whom you run away from but who comes back and picks you up.

There should be something revelatory about art. It should be totally creative and open doors for new thoughts and experiences.

It's my memory, and what happened between that moment 10 or 15 years ago and now, there's a lot of gray area

Most people don't do something seminal. I've done it twice: with my tent and my bed. Picasso did it with Cubism.

When it comes to words I have a uniqueness that I find almost impossible in art – and it's my words that actually make my art quite unique.

What's really good about the word 'art' is that 'art' is a word like 'love,' or 'god,' or whatever. It transcends so many things.

What is truth? Truth doesn't really exist. Who is going to judge whether my experience of an incident is more valid than yours? No one can be trusted to be the judge of that.

The words went round and round and round in my mind and my body, until I knew they were no longer my words but something that had been carved into my heart. And now my soul was crying.

There is nothing difficult about my work, and people get to hear it from me.

I feel physically ill if I don't make work, I don't create. I don't feel very good. I don't feel right, I feel wrong.

Write in the morning, revise in the afternoon, read at night, and spend the rest of your time exercising your diplomacy, stealth, and charm.

The past is called the past for a reason. If you are constantly looking behind you, your eyes aren't on the road ahead. You don't drive the car that way, so why should you live your life that way?

People don't like it when you say real things.

Now if I lived in my land, which I do, if I lived in Iceland, if I lived in Greensland I'd still have Chinese children, but out of my ears my little grey baby hears.

The guy is a stud with women just following him around wherever he goes. But he is the last one who'll ask anyone to do anything for him. He'd rather just go do it himself.

My conscience is clear. I was simply doing my duty.

When a pirate grows rich enough, they make him a prince.

Though all afflictions are evils in themselves, yet they are good for us, because they discover to us our disease and tend to our cure.

Everything can be found at sea according to the spirit of your quest.

My God, I'd love to smash into the casket of Dostoyevsky, grab that bony hand and scream at the remains, 'Well done, you god-damn genius.'