"God is no white knight who charges into the world to pluck us like distressed damsels from the jaws of dragons, or disease. God chooses to become present to and through us. It is up to us to rescue one another."
"I looked at my right hand, the hand with which I painted. There was power in that hand. Power to create and destroy. Power to bring pleasure and pain. Power to amuse and horrify. There was in that hand the demonic and the divine at one and the same time. The demonic and the divine were two aspects of the same force. Creation was demonic and divine. Creativity was demonic and divine. I was demonic and divine."
"Fiction shows us the past as well as the present moment in mortal light; it is an art served by the indelibility of our memory, and one empowered by a sharp and prophetic awareness of what is ephemeral. It is by the ephemeral that our feeling is so strongly aroused for what endures, or strives to endure."
"Noah, from 'The Young Lions' (1958), was the best performance of my life. I couldn't have given more of myself. I'll never be able to do it again. Never."