"I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist."

"You can't fight for your life and sanity and then leave the battlefield and go home and live happily ever after."

"I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, 'The Beatle…"

"Mankind has been making a mess of things for a long time. It's time we started cleaning it up."

"The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable."