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Having a memoir and a retrospective of your work running almost simultaneously when you're still alive does feel a bit posthumous.

I've been asked to do a retrospective since I was about 28 and I always thought that was a bit odd. It's great to look forward as an artist because in the future the possibilities are infinite; you look back and it's all fixed so it's a scary thing.

I never do, I don't even go to the retrospectives.

By the age of 50, I would like to know that I'm not dead - that there's some continuity to my life.

Every day without fail one should consider himself as dead. There is a saying of the elders that goes, 'Step from under the eaves and you're a dead man. Leave the gate and the enemy is waiting.' This is not a matter of being careful. It is to consider oneself as dead beforehand.

If you're not getting older, you're dead.

New research shows that you will be dead longer than you will be alive.

Some people say it might be good for your career to die and then come back again. I have died many ways, car crashes, motorcycle crashes, etc. But, I am still alive.

I'm old, not dead.

The problem is when you are writing something in retrospective, it needs a lot of courage not to change, or you will forget a certain reality, and you will just take in consideration your view today.