Experience is real. Painting, which comes out of experience, is real. The world is an illusion.

Making art is like swimming underwater in a blindfold.

An ivory tower is a fine place as long as the door is open.

No high-minded painter of the last fifty years has been able to come to terms with his art without coming to terms with the problem of cubism.

Most people find facts irritating. Facts interfere with their systems of denial.

What is sublime? / the artist said. / I haven't time / to be well read. / To be sub lime / I'll place, instead, / green citrus fruit / upon my head.

Always let intuitive perception precede analysis.

Postmodernism is Modernism with Alzheimer's.

Writing about art is only useful when it leads to the experience of art.

When you are painting a landscape, assume the painting is real and the landscape is an illusion.

Postmodernism is silly and joyless at the same time.

I think each book has its own way of accommodating my concerns, whether it's about race, America, technology, the city.

We need to make college affordable in price, and also have lower-cost student loans and more available grants for students.

Better no marriage, than a marriage short of the best.

We worship education but hate learning.

These days I live in three worlds: my dreams, and the experiences of my new life, which trigger memories from the past

I think Def Jam happened to be one of the labels that really didn't have a good grip on things that were going on. I'll say that - that's my political answer.

Democracy necessarily means a conflict of will and ideas, involving sometimes a war of the knife between different ideas.

In this lineup, anywhere I hit, I don't care. I always go out there and swing the bat the same way.

A teacher should be sparing of his smile.

They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies.