I assumed that everything would lead to complete failure, but I decided that didn't matter – that would be my life.

As one gets older one sees many more paths that could be taken. Artists sense within their own work that kind of swelling of possibilities, which may seem a freedom or a confusion.

Bend color names which should be made of neon or copper tubing. Place an object on a surface - trace the object - then bend the object - leaving some part of it attached.

To be an artist you have to give up everything, including the desire to be a good artist.

Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it.

One night I dreamed that I painted a large American flag, and the next morning I got up and I went out and bought the materials to begin it.

When something is new to us, we treat it as an experience. We feel that our senses are awake and clear. We are alive.

One works without thinking how to work.

It's simple, you just take something and do something to it, and then do something else to it. Keep doing this, and pretty soon you've got something.

Art is either a complaint or appeasement.

I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints paintings without a conscious reason.

My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.

The present is always the best, even when its rough.

I would like Epicurus and Buddha to become one.

I was a big fan of black gospel. As a kid, there were black groups I sang with from my teen years to my early 20s.

To me, writing is the most fun. It's not always fun, but finally when you make it come out the way you want, it's then you can say, 'It's fun, boy.'

I started my political life in the Resistance. It was there that I had my first responsibility.

I watched the Trade Center buildings go down from my balcony, and it was a terrifying moment. I couldn't get my mind around it at all.

If Donald Trump builds the wall the way he builds Trump Towers, he'll be using illegal immigrant labor to do it.

The true preacher does not seek for truth in the pulpit; he is there because he has found it.

Nothing is more true, more real, than the primeval magnetic disturbances that two souls may communicate to one another, through the tiny sparks of a moment's glance.