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

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.

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

A work of art is a renewable source of energy.

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.

If you haven’t thought about quitting even once when working on your business, that business is not your real passion.

When I feel stressed, I turn to food for comfort, but I don't like to diet and I'm not good at it.

My makeup wasn't smeared, I wasn't disheveled, I behaved politely, and I never finished off a bottle, so how could I be alcoholic?

Makes of men date, like makes of car.

My faith is the only thing that never fails me.

Heaven is on this earth. There are no angels on the clouds with twanging harps... That's just another man's fantasy.

My music has always been important regardless of other projects.

The value of an ambitious goal is not measured by what it will bring to you. The worth of a goal is measured by what it will make of you in the process of following and attaining it.

First, believe in the world - that there is meaning behind everything.

In other words, the Church acknowledges Science as the higher authority.