I think that the very earliest influence was a horror of having to work in a bank or an office, a desire for a free and creative life.

I destroy things every day in the act of working and often recall a picture I had considered finished in order to rework it.

I'm hoping to make a new thing for the world that remains in the mind like a new species of living thing.

If you pass something every day and it has a little character, it begins to intrigue you.

Real style is not having a program - it's how one behaves in a crisis.

Ideally, one should have more material than one can possibly cope with.

In addition to the artistic influences, I am influenced by my current private life, my feelings about it and my energy level and state of health.

It seems to me madness to wake up in the morning and do something other than paint, considering that one may not wake up the following morning.

Falsehood always punishes itself.

The unity in any painter's work arises from the fact that a person, brought to a desperate situation, will behave in a certain way... style.

I go out each morning and draw. I can't really start a painting in the morning until I've done a drawing.

I must never equate the degree of pain as evidencing the incorrectness of a decision, for if I do I will default on some of the most critical decisions I should have ever made.

There are times when it is conservative to be a revolutionary, when the world must be turned on its head in order to be stood on its feet.

With faith, hope and enduring spirit we shall triumph.

The worst thing about being famous is the invasion of your privacy.

It's always good when women win things in fiction because it tends to be more male-dominated, unlike poetry, which is more equal

The reality of the situation is life on Earth has not changed. We need facts, we need events, we need specifics on things.

Build a little community of those you love and who love you

. . . the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth.

The economic illusion is the belief that social justice is bad for economic growth.

He's got to let go of you sometime.