I have always felt that I am the sum total of my parts.

My use of the medium - photography - is in some ways traditional.

As a former Catholic, and as someone who even today is not opposed to being called a Christian, I felt I had every right to use the symbols of the Church and resented being told not to.

I am just an artist.

I have always felt that my work is religious, not sacrilegious.

I like the aesthetics of the Church.

Unfortunately, the Church's position on most contemporary issues makes it hard to take them seriously.

I think if the Vatican is smart, someday they'll collect my work.

I like going to Church for aesthetic reasons, rather than spiritual ones.

In my work, I explore my own Catholic obsessions.

Oftentimes we love the thing we hate and vice versa.

An artist is nothing without his or her obsessions, and I have mine.

Some people have compared the Klan images to ecclesiastical figures.

My work is intensely personal.

One of the things that I am happy about in my life as an artist is that I am not considered a Hispanic artist.

People have to find ways of explaining the work.

I have always felt that I am the sum total of my parts.

I usually refer to myself as Hispanic.

My work has social implications, it functions in a social arena.

I am drawn to Christ but I have real problems with the Catholic Church.

Being born, especially being born a person of color, is a political act in itself.

Whenever possible, I operate outside the system.

I have never voted in my life.

I don't think that because I am Hispanic I should therefore do Hispanic work.

I like to believe that rather than destroy icons, I make new ones.

I have never been able to see myself as fitting into one category, and I have never been able to limit my contact with people to one group of people.

I like Church furniture.

I am an artist first and a photographer second.

I do work too hard sometimes, but my mom is such an inspiration. She tells me to 'chill out' and not take things so seriously. She will say: 'Go and have a massage.'

My father is a jazz musician, so I grew up hearing jazz. My parents loved it, but I didn't like it. It went on for too long. Yes, I had certain teachers that really inspired me, like Danny Barker, and John Longo. And I had no idea that I would have any impact on jazz.

Conceit is pride and arrogance on steroids.

We are still masters of our fate. We are still captains of our souls.

I like to think that I represent myself as a strong woman, so to work with other strong women I find very inspiring.

I have the luxury of being a little boy... To me, the most important thing in life is to be a human being. Second is acting.

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand. . . and melting like a snowflake. Let us use it before it is too late.

The shift to a cleaner energy economy wont happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way. But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact.

When I was growing up, I thought I was getting bored of acting, so I left that. Then after a few years, I started missing it. I left my studies mid-way, and I used to give lots of auditions.

I don't think I'd be a very good parent. I'd be too honest.

Elvis was a way bigger influence than Waylon Jennings, but you don't wanna tell people, 'I never really listened to Waylon.'

I had no talent for science. What was infinitely worse: all my fraternity brothers were engineers.

I wasn't afraid to be who I am. I didn't think anything was wrong with it.

Why don't we actually fight for a woman's right even to complain about being beaten up. That is more important than driving. If a woman is beaten, they are told to go back to their homes - their fathers, husbands, brothers - to be beaten up again and locked up in the house.

The universe is always speaking to us... sending us little messages, causing coincidences and serendipities, reminding us to stop, to look around, to believe in something else, something more.

There were times that I thought I was good looking.

You know, when I was a young boy I used to play baseball in my back yard or in the street with my brothers or the neighborhood kids. We used broken bats and plastic golf balls and played for hours and hours.

The charm of the best courages is that they are inventions inspirations flashes of genius.

At 13, when I was a runaway, I was taken in by the most amazing drag queens in Portland, Ore. We didn't always know where our next meal was coming from, but there was so much camaraderie and love. Not to mention, those girls could paint a face, and I learned how because of them.

I want to bring back the human encounter into places where material things have a prime status. In a museum, you're supposed to look at things and not talk to other people.

Age is just a number, and I know so many women who look fabulous at 40, 50 and 60 so it doesn't scare me. It's inevitable - I will get older, and the wrinkles will come, but I'm not that bothered.