I was worried in the '80s that the best abstract painting had become obsessed with materiality, and painterly gestures and materiality were up against the wall.

I don't like to say I have given my life to art. I prefer to say art has given me my life.

What you see is what you see.

You see what you know!

But, after all, the aim of art is to create space - space that is not compromised by decoration or illustration, space within which the subjects of painting can live.

All I want anyone to get out of my paintings, and all I ever get out of them, is the fact that you can see the whole idea without any confusion…What you see is what you see.

Making art is complicated because the categories are always changing. You just have to make your own art, and whatever categories it falls into will come later.

A sculpture is just a painting cut out and stood up somewhere.

The aim of art is to create space.

I'm more of a house painter.That's the way I work.

There's a lot of difference between being well known and being notorious and the black paintings didn't make me well known - they made me notorious.

Evolution is adventitious and not foresighted. Only through the deaths of an immense number of slightly maladapted organisms are we, brains and all, here today.

Nothing is more important than you, so don't fear or feel stress, whatever you do.

I don't follow precedent I establish it.

When I was a kid, I had some Charles Lloyd records.

Hold the period of youth sacred to education, and the period of maturity, when the physical forces begin to flag, equally sacred to ease and agreeable relaxation.

Expectation makes a blessing dear. Heaven were not heaven if we knew what it was.

We'd like to apologise to the fans, the chairman, the staff and everyone connected to Newcastle

My best dreams and worst nightmares have the same people in them.

Grown ups don't believe in Santa Claus. They vote.

He was not a modest man. Contemplating suicide, he summoned a dragon.' Gothos' Folly