“I don't want to produce a work of art that the public can sit and suck aesthetically…. I want to give them a blow in the small of the back, to scorch their indifference, to startle them out of their complacency.”

“Annie, If I wanted to suck vile fluids out of a flaccid and indifferent tube, I'd have stayed on Earth with my husband.”

“If I start giving people what they like I'll turn into one of them and I don't want to be one of them I want to be one of me.”

“Sometimes, things don't work out the way we want them to.”

“How do I produce the effects which I obtain from the piano? … In answer I would say I produce them by listening, criticizing, judging—working over the point, until I get it as I want it. Then I can reproduce it at will, if I want to make just the same effect; but sometimes I want to change and try another.”

“If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it, too. I want them to be able to do whatever they want around me.”

“Idleness, indifference and irresponsibility are healthy responses to absurd work… If you want people motivated to do a good job, give them a good job to do.”

“I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say.”

“I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”

“When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, 'I am going to produce a work of art.' I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.”