By and large, talent is in such short supply that mediocrity can be taken for brilliance rather more than genius can go undiscovered.

Being a good artist is the toughest job you could pick, and you have to be a little nuts to take it on.

My aim in life isn't so much the pursuit of happiness as the happiness of pursuit.

Art collectors are pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. What matters and survives is the art.

Nothing is as uplifting as standing before a great painting whether it was painted in 1505 or last Tuesday.

Be the Worst You Can Be: Life's Too Long for Patience and Virtue

The fact that in the last 10 years only five of the 40 Turner Prize nominees have been painters tells you more about curators than about the state of painting today.

There are no rules about investment. Sharks can be good. Artist's dung can be good. Oil on canvas can be good.

I don't buy art in order to leave a mark or to be remembered; clutching at immortality is of zero interest to anyone sane.

Nobody can give you advice after you've been collecting for a while. If you don't enjoy making your own decisions, you're never going to be much of a collector anyway.

I may not be much good at most things, but if I didnt have the pleasure of planning and installing shows, and doing it better than anyone else, I would have stopped buying art many years ago.

All idealisation makes life poorer. To beautify it is to take away its character of complexity — it is to destroy it.

I demand a lot from myself and reflect this attitude upon others: I consider it to be an important quality for a leader. I also think it is impossible to achieve success without persistence.

Actually, I feel music becoming more and more important. It's a big source of inspiration. With what's going on in the world, we feel almost desperate. Music also brings you peace.

Nothing is more painful to me than the disdain with which people treat second-rate authors, as if there were room only for the first-raters.

I was not a tribalist when I had a long-standing and intimate relationship with Miss Bianca Onoh, an Igbo lady.

Often times I have hated in self-defense; if I were stronger I would not have used such a weapon.

Battles are followed by years of famine.

I read Pushing the Limit and Dare You To by Katie McGarry. Fantastic stuff. I had never read young adult before, but now Im a believer.

Prison experience puts distance between me and any person who hasn't been there, done that.

The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.