Holding together a kind of tension. When you see a painting that's really good that's what it's doing.

Western artists stand as humans looking at nature; Asian artists try to be in nature. You become one with nature rather than painting a portrait of it. That's a big shift.

When you're using a long brush, you have your arm at full length. Basically, it exaggerates the movement of your body. But I always start far away and end up really close.

A painting, you know, it's all dirty material. But it's about transformation. Taking that earth, that heavy earthen kind of thing, turning it into air and light.

A work of art is a renewable source of energy.

I'm an abstract painter not just for myself, but because I really believe in abstraction.

Painters are amongst the priests - worker priests of the cult of man - searching to understand but never know.

I've always worn a hat when I work. I think it also comes from a picture of Rothko I saw with a painter's hat on.

I don't remember any dream. All I remember is waking up and feeling that there had been a change while I was sleeping.

When you're not smoking anymore, you don't have to carry around a pack of cigarettes, a lighter - all this paraphernalia. So you're liberated in a certain sense. It's the same with drinking.

I respect all artists, just some more than the others. Because it's something that really needs to be done.

I'm not a body with a soul, I'm a soul that has a visible part called the body.

Truth is an outlaw in every country.

The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him, the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free.

I like to say understanding is the power.

Even when I have to write a simple letter I'm scared stiff as if faced with looming seasickness.

I cry. Evil dissolves, & love, like foam; that love. Prattle of children powers me home, my heart claps like the swan's under a frenzy of who love me & who shine.

In science it is not enough to think of an important problem on which to work. It is also necessary to know the means which could be used to investigate the problem.

That's what world leadership is: A willingness to point at bad guys and say they're the bad guys and to keep the bad guys from getting worse! That's leadership. Obama didn't want to go there.

I would prefer to grow with the team inside Nintendo rather than taking anyone from outside. It would be a joy for me if someone who was working with me became a big success.

Your aim as a photographer is to get a picture of that person that means something. Portraits aren't fantasies; they need to tell a truth.