In junior high school, I was an object of pure ridicule for my dress, withdrawal, and asocial manner. Dozens of times, I saw individuals laugh and smile more in ten to fifteen minutes than I did in all my life up to then.

The artist is not responsible to any one. His social role is asocial... his only responsibility consists in an attitude to the work he does.

If other people do not understand our behavior-so what? Their request that we must only do what they understand is an attempt to dictate to us. If this is being "asocial" or "irrational" in their eyes, so be it. Mostly they resent our freedom and our courage to be ourselves. We owe nobody an explanation or an accounting, as long as our acts do not hurt or infringe on them. How many lives have been ruined by this need to "explain," which usually implies that the explanation be "understood," i.e. approved. Let your deeds be judged, and from your deeds, your real intentions, but know that a free person owes an explanation only to himself-to his reason and his conscience-and to the few who may have a justified claim for explanation.

In junior high school I was an object of pure ridicule for my dress withdrawal and asocial manner. Dozens of times I saw individuals laugh and smile more in ten to fifteen minutes than I did in all my life up to then.

The artist is not responsible to any one. His social role is asocial... his only responsibility consists in an attitude to the work he does.