Many years ago, Clement Greenberg said, 'All profoundly original work looks ugly at first.' This should be updated now to 'All profoundly ugly work looks original at first.

Making art is like swimming underwater in a blindfold.

An ivory tower is a fine place as long as the door is open.

No high-minded painter of the last fifty years has been able to come to terms with his art without coming to terms with the problem of cubism.

Most people find facts irritating. Facts interfere with their systems of denial.

What is sublime? / the artist said. / I haven't time / to be well read. / To be sub lime / I'll place, instead, / green citrus fruit / upon my head.

Always let intuitive perception precede analysis.

Postmodernism is Modernism with Alzheimer's.

Writing about art is only useful when it leads to the experience of art.

When you are painting a landscape, assume the painting is real and the landscape is an illusion.

Postmodernism is silly and joyless at the same time.

One learns not to need by needing.

Osteosarcoma sometimes takes a limb to check you out. The, if it like you, it takes the rest.

I'm not gonna say that I hate it, because I really respect Usher and I was influenced by him. But so many people compare me to him, and I don't think it'll ever stop. I just want to be my own artist.

It is a lovely oddity of human nature that a person is more inclined to interrupt two people in conversation than one person alone with a book.

When I did the first 'Matrix,' after it came out, I had a woman come up to me and just thank me for Trinity because she was an action writer. She said she was getting really good opportunities now.

Before every performance I feel nervous.

A stranger's rose is but a thorn.

That's my main thing: I want to be on the level those guys [Derrick Rose,Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant] are on.

People are often talking when they are not supposed to be.

I went straight in. Fade in, one... whatever. He's playing the piano in the radio station.