“I hate to put tags on things, because tags change, and they change with the requirements made on them.”

What I did for my last act as a painter, if you call me a painter, was to photograph the weave of the canvas, and enlarge it and enlarge it until it became like a landscape.

And I even like my own company. But when I’m alone, it’s to read or write. I’m in my thoughts. Mostly I’m learning.

Most wonderful things are unconscious.

I studied how to mine a landfill and what to plant in it. It’s fascinating because you learn a new field each time.

I never considered myself a performance artist.

So the understructure should be underrated, but strong enough to hold the earth.

Words are changing. I find that old expressions are outdated, so when I write something, I try to find a new expression that hasn’t been born yet. It’s difficult.

Something to pay attention to and maybe change direction.

If I could relive my life, what I would do is work with scientists. But not one scientist, because they’re locked into their little specializations.

And combining the two is creating this beautiful alliance between humanity and nature. That’s why my forests are mathematical expansion systems, all of them.

The tree is made by nature, mathematics by people.

Society likes to file you away, put you in this or that category. And I never fit any category.

People have too many problems during the day; they don’t want to think.

I study what I work with. I studied all these different fields of science that I needed for my work.

There’s no precedent for women philosophers and there’s no precedence for most of the things I did.

Pattern-finding is the purpose of the mind and the construct of the universe.

The Communist bloc of old was a study in the failure of failure. Losers in the Soviet economy were the people at the end of the long lines for consumer goods. Worse losers were the people who had spent hours getting to the head of the line, only to be told that the goods were unavailable.

You are never used of God to bring blessing until God has opened your eyes and made you see things as they are.

He really showed me something. Struck out three times. Made an error that lost the game. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we drove off. Gosh, I was proud.

I think my top salary was maybe in 1966. I made $17,000 and 11 of that came from selling other players’ equipment.

My dad never really wrote what he thought. None of his inner rage and darkness and problems, which we all have, made it on to the page. For him, writing was a process of making everything appear funny.

Andy Warhol made fame more famous.

Forgiveness is the answer to the child’s dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again.

I think it is always a long shot getting a book made into a film.