"How about we have been dead and what we must do after we die? Why we go to the churches when we are living because I think the divines and Christs are dead in the churches and provide the services, cares and merrys on our lived people. And we received the peaceful mind from them and held a better life than before."

"This is the way the world really ends: not with whimper but a desperate chuckle."

"Organised religion is something I find hard to follow."

"A grave and sincere apology to the people of Iraq."

"God is a concept."

"Not power not cruelty not death not winning not fighting not money not oil not war not sex not tyranny: all tyrants fall."

"Every river can be crossed."

"Feeling is its own law and truth."

"Everything is resurrected in memory."

"The purpose of my life is to try out the ideas I have for it."

"Everything turns only to memory."

"Look to the day when we can say goodbye to all out heroes because their work is done. Justice is alive, independent, unassailable."

"Protest is liberty's ally."

"Rain has always been connected in my mind with kindness."

"Liberty dies where there is agreement without thought or argument."

"The immense beauty, the vast almost unbearable beauty of justice."

"The bodily strength, the fierceness and beauty of young women."

"Women are much more honourable than men."

"There’s not a lesbian hero that everybody can relate to."

"There are many ways to be strong."

"Let’s speak of justice as present in the world, as independent and self-perpetuating."

"You said in that moment on the beach you were entirely happy."

"The other side of reverence is loathing."

"When we speak plainly of death we stand equal to it."

"My heart pumping 70 times a minute every minute my whole life. What a task! To reach any age in those terms sounds miraculous!"

"If the great Western experiment fails and we end up living in totalitarian war-on-terrorism states, one day someone’s going to say, 'Well democracy doesn’t work because they had to give it up’."

"To embrace the fullness of possible experience without fear strikes me as heroic, impossibly heroic."

"Quentin Crisp said it to me; now I say it to you: say yes to everything."

"Art’s true purpose is to be human as opposed to some rarefied activity set away from real life. I think art should help you to navigate the real challenges of being a human being."

"There is nothing beautiful or noble about death or fear."

"I do see myself as aiming to foment some kind of revolution."

"Art should help you to navigate the real challenges of being a human being."

"I believe we have to put art back at the center of everyday life rather than allowing it to become a specialist activity at the margins of society."

"If we’re being told to do stupid or cruel things, then it is morally correct to disobey."

"I realized that the only possible response was to go to my wonderful local café, Maison Bertaux, check everyone was well, eat a little cake and then make art. To me, making art, and in particular public art, is always an assertion of our humanity and our strength."

"War is always a failure. It means we’ve failed in diplomacy and we’ve failed in talking to one another."

"There's an obligation to try every route to happiness."

"Why settle for the art world when you can have the whole world?"

"Ageing is a privilege not a predicament"

"I want to live in a city where the police don’t shoot you."

"All I need is a hat and a vagina."

"I can accept no responsibility for any changes in your existence, miraculous or otherwise. You must take responsibility for your own life. You must have your own life because if you haven’t had at least that, what have you had?"

"Calamitous collapse is better than mediocre defeat!"

"Different is not wrong."

"Revolutions have always started in cafés."

"Everybody should be entitled to one lie, one failing, one infidelity."

"When the world’s run by fools it’s the duty of intelligence to disobey."

"Never fall for someone with a body to diet for."