If I don't have anything better to do that day, I'll copy paintings, generally by people who have some relationship to the work of the moment.

If we don't have a sense of humor, we lack a sense of perspective

Common objects become strangely uncommon when removed from their context and ordinary ways of being seen.

If you stare at an object, as you do when you paint, there is no point at which you stop learning things from it.

I think of myself as a beginner. Sometimes that's the whole joy. If you could just do it, there'd be no point in doing it.

I haven't the slightest idea what art is, but to be a painter is something of which you have to prove.

Every paint-stroke takes you farther and farther away from your initial concept. And you have to be thankful for that.

Discipline is not a restriction but an aid to freedom.

I'm not just interested in the pictorial aspects of the landscape - see a pretty place and try to paint it - but in some way to manage it, manipulate it, or see what I can turn it into.

Art is not delivered like the morning paper; it has to be stolen from Mount Olympus.

Art means something very rare, an extraordinary achievement.

Best of all are the decorations the grandchildren have made ~ fat little stars and rather crooked Santas, shaped out of dough and baked in the oven.

And I argued with that intelligence estimate and I think it is a responsibility of policymakers to use their best judgment on the basis of the intelligence they've received.

The object of the patrol method is not so much saving the Scoutmaster trouble as to give responsibility to the boy.

Your inner purpose is to awaken. It is as simple as that. You share that purpose with every other person on the planet - because it is the purpose of humanity.

April 27. Incapable of living with people, of speaking. Complete immersion in myself, thinking of myself. Apathetic, witless, fearful. I have nothing to say to anyone - never.

People get caught up in formulaic answers. When one doesn't work, they just go on to the next.

Exploding many things under the name of trifles is a very false proof either of wisdom or magnanimity, and a great check to virtuous actions with regard to fame.

Religion should be dearer than life itself.

Being afraid of having an endoscopy (if you're a man) and giving birth (if you're a woman).

There will be time to murder and create.