One of the pleasures of art is that it enables the mind to move in unanticipated directions, to make connections that may be in some sense errors but are fruitful nonetheless.

I don't think you can talk about progress in art - movement, but not progress. You can speak of a point on a line for the purpose of locating things, but it's a horizontal line, not a vertical one.

The writer is one who, embarking upon a task, does not know what to do... Writing is a process of dealing with not-knowing, a forcing of what and how.

The aim of literature ... is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.

Endings are elusive, middles are nowhere to be found, but worst of all is to begin, to begin, to begin.

Any genuine work of art generates new work.

I believe that because I had obtained a wife who was made up of wife-signs (beauty, charm, softness, perfume, cookery) I had found love.

Yes, success is everything. Failure is more common. Most achieve a sort of middling thing, but fortunately one's situation is always blurred, you never know absolutely quite where you are.

The death of God left the angels in a strange position.

We are what we have been told about ourselves. We are the sum of the messages we have received. The true messages. The false messages.

The privileged classes can afford psychoanalysis and whiskey. Whereas all we get is sermons and sour wine. This is manifestly unfair. I protest, silently.

Whoever turns to the Lord, shall walk in the light.

The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode.

The production pushes and pulls you as much as the song does. It's almost more to do with the production value of how each bit was done as opposed to the actual track itself.

The object of a bunker or trap is not only to punish a physical mistake, to punish lack of control, but also to punish pride and egotism.

The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others. The creed whose legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to develop the strongest proselytizing impulse.

I wondered whether I could find a Great Perhaps here at all or whether I had made a grand miscalculation.

You've got to say yes to this miracle of life as it is, not on condition that it follow your rules.

Creative expression and visual comprehension are really the handmaidens of art. One cannot thrive without the other.

No subject is unsuitable for comedy.

Black belt in Akihito. (Amanda) Any other time, I'd kiss you for that. (Kyrian)