My influences have been what I call my four Bs - the primary one being the blues, then Borges, Baraka, and Bearden.

Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.

Have a belief in yourself that is bigger than anyone's disbelief.

All you need in the world is love and laughter. That's all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other.

All of art is a search for ways of being, of living life more fully.

Your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel.

You get to the point where your demons, which are terrifying, get smaller and smaller and you get bigger and bigger.

The simpler you say it, the more eloquent it is.

Freedom is heavy. You got to put your shoulder to freedom. Put your shoulder to it and hope your back holds up.

Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.

You got to be right with yourself before you can be right with anybody else.

Do you know how hard it is to find someone who can reciprocate your feelings?

No one could say how long that life would last. Whatever has form can disappear in an instant.

The current Michigan Constitution was written in 1961 and 62.

It was the most romantic plane ever made.

That inner voice has both gentleness and clarity. So to get to authenticity, you really keep going down to the bone, to the honesty, and the inevitability of something.

What differences were there between Maradona and Platini?

I had some good opportunities. I was lucky to have had the chance to do things differently. Architecture is about surprise.

Michelangelo's girlfriend, who said to Angelo, Forget the paint - let's put a mirror on the ceiling. Never got a dinner!

It's not often a thriller keeps me wound up as well as 'Headhunters' did. I knew I was being manipulated and didn't care. It was a pleasure to see how well it was being done.

Because this age and the next age Engender in the ditch, No man can know a happy man From any passing wretch, If Folly link with Elegance No man knows which is which.