“To be an artist or a writer is to be this weird thing – a hand worker in an era of mass production.”

To paraphrase several sages: Nobody can think and hit someone at the same time.

Wherever people feel safe – they will be indifferent.

The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions.

10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.

Sanity is a cozy lie.

The problems of this world are only truly solved in two ways: by extinction or duplication.

Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers.

The truth is balance. However the opposite of truth, which is unbalance, may not be a lie.

Mallarme said that everything in the world exists in order to end in a book. Today everything exists to end in a photograph.

Today everything exists to end in a photograph.

Instead of just recording reality, photographs have become the norm for the way things appear to us, thereby changing the very idea of reality and of realism.

Kindness, kindness, kindness. I want to make a New Year’s prayer, not a resolution. I’m praying for courage.

If tragedy is an experience of hyperinvolvement, comedy is an experience of underinvolvement, of detachment.

Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.

Societies need to have one illness which becomes identified with evil, and attaches blame to its victims.

Real art has the capacity to make us nervous.

I think an artist is anybody who does something well, like if you cook well.

Every human is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art.

An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.

Artists are the monks of the bourgeois state.

Why do people think artists are special? It’s just another job.

The problem of making the inner meet the outer of today is, of course, the function of the artist.

When I’m picking songs for an album I always want a song that I can relate to and that I have experienced. There’s nothing worse than watching an artist try and sell a song that isn’t believable coming from them.

Silence the artist and you have silenced the most articulate voice the people have.