I have one aim, the grotesque. If I am not grotesque I am nothing.

Advertisement is an absolute necessity of modern life, and if it can be made beautiful as well as obvious, so much the better for the makers of soap and the public who are likely to wash.

Things shape themselves before my eyes just as a I draw them.

I have always done my sketches, as people would say, for the fun of it... I have worked to amuse myself, and if it has amused the public as well, so much the better for me.

No language is rude that can boast polite writers.

It takes only one man to make an artist, but forty to make an Academician.

How few of our young English impressionists knew the difference between a palette and a picture! However, I believe that Walter Sickert did - sly dog!

People hate to see their vices depicted, but vice is terrible and it should be depicted.

Next to us is not the workman whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the workman whose work we are.

I realize no matter how smart you are, you’ll end up trusting people and get hurt. This world is full of pretenders and you’ll never know.

Some of us don’t trust others unless there’s a reason to trust them.I prefer to trust others until they give me a reason not to.

I write four or five a books a year. That means that I usually have one on the go. I am fortunate in being able to write quickly - 1000 words an hour.

Narrative art, the novel, from Murasaki to Proust, has produced great works of poetry.

I guess a lot of bands play around until they come up with something they like.

Looking back, my life so far seems like one long obstacle race, with me as its chief obstacle.

Seeing, feeling, thinking, believing - these are the stages of how we change our style on the outside and our self-image on the inside.

Young, gifted, and destitute.

The meanest flowret of the vale, / The simplest note that swells the gale, / The common sun, the air, and skies, / To him are opening paradise.