“When you're retired, you get into your routines and other people, even so-called loved ones, become a strain.”

“I say to people I'm in my late period. Obviously, as you get older you're in your late period anyway, but to decide you are becomes a concept. It's related to the concept of my retirement, which was about the fact that I'd shown at the greatest gallery in the world and I'd never top that… So, I retired from the jealousy of other artists, and ambition. I could alternatively have become a Buddhist or something — it is a kind of beatific state.”

“When we're making music together, it's like five men making love-in a very platonic sense. It's very erotic, because your spirits are intermingling, you're becoming one. It's also why it can get so heated. You're tapping into this electricity that's very primal.”

“When you're rotten about yourself, you become rotten to everyone else, even those
you love.”

“Perhaps you should say there should be mandatory retirement even of members of the court, members of the federal judiciary. I'm sure there can be questions about whether one does as good work when you get into your—you know, I'm 67.”

“Pain is real when you get other people to believe in it. If no one believes in it but you, your pain is madness or hysteria.”

“Self pity becomes your oxygen. But you learned to breathe it without a gasp. So, nobody even notices you're hurting.”

“I don’t want to get old.”
“You won’t get old. Life will pass over your face, that will be all, and it will become more beautiful. One is old only when one no longer feels.”
“No. When one no longer loves.”

“Great love stories are created by two people who are bonded through deep love. A love so intense, your palms become moist and your heart flutters when you think of them.”

“That's what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you're not so lovable.”