You see, I thought of myself as making minimalist art like the music of Lamonte Young, or the paintings of Frank Stella.

One does not devote one's life in art to shock an audience.

There is no work of art that has ever been made that is absolutely truthful about life.

I'm there to make a kind of theatrical music that is desperately missing in my life. And if other people don't like it, I'm very unhappy, but I can't do anything about that.

Which implies that the real issue in art is the audience's response. Now I claim that when I make things, I don't care about the audience's response, I'm making them for myself. But I'm making them for myself as audience, because I want to wake myself up.

I don't even think about a retirement program because I'm working for the Lord, for the Almighty. And even thought the Lord's pay isn't very high, his retirement program is, you might say, out of this world.