“I was a born troublemaker and might as well earn a living at it.”

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

As quoted in "Caviar for Beverly Sills" in The New York Times (15 October 1984) http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/15/nyregion/new-york-day-by-day-caviar-for-beverly-sills.html
Context: Why should I go when it's going so good? … I lived through the garbage. I might as well dine on the caviar.

The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927)

Paris Review interview (1986)
Context: I always had this feeling — I’ve heard other Jews say — that when you can’t find any other explanation for Jews, you say, “Well, they are poets.” There are a great many similarities. This is a theme running all through my stuff from the very beginning. The poet is in exile whether he is or he is not. Because of what everybody knows about society’s idea of the artist as a peripheral character and a potential bum. Or troublemaker. Well, the Jews began their career of troublemaking by inventing the God whom Wallace Stevens considers the ultimate poetic idea. And so I always thought of myself as being both in and out of society at the same time. Like the way most artists probably feel in order to survive — you have to at least pretend that you are “seriously” in the world. Or actually perform in it while you know that in your own soul you are not in it at all. You are outside observing it.

Source: Press briefing http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/10/20051031-3.html, October 31, 2005

As quoted in Poet, J. (11 February 2009)