With those paintings, he really connected to looking at himself and the place he was from and what he could say about that.

He started with modest-sized pieces and built on the vocabulary he developed then. He's now broadened it much more to, dare I say, something operatic.

He worked harder than anybody. But he was never plagued by the kind of preoccupation with style and the idea of how an artist in New York should be. He was never concerned with being appropriately hip.

I didn't feel compromised as an actor, and allowed other people's fingerprints all over that aspect.

I'm not a writer because I want to make money. I'm a writer because I'm a very slow thinker, but I do care about thinking, and the only way I know how to think with any kind of finesse is by telling stories.

It is of first-class importance that our answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx should be in step with how we conduct our civilisation, and this should in turn be in step with the actual workings of living systems.