Painting has this ability to send the viewer [backward], but it's also this physical object in the room with you. It's always knocking you back into the present moment, which I find very pleasurable.

A good painting has to do about 12 things at once.

I can only think of a handful of artists that can make a funny painting or a funny sculpture without it feeling coined in someway.

I think that painting relates very neatly to inner travel and the exploration of inner worlds. With painting, I always get the impression that you're sort of entering into a shared space.

You have the 20th century wrapping up and everything is moving at this breakneck speed? And then, painting is still walking. It's just a very human activity that takes time.

I think you do kind of slip into a trance when you look at a painting. At least I do.

There are different kinds of concentration required to make a painting, different kinds of being present.

I think, with abstraction, it's easy to fall into a sort of pastiche.

I think painting has that unique potential to project opposing viewpoints.

Technology's always changing. There was a time where oil painting was a new technology. That changed painting.

Paintings exist in the present tense, yet somehow, because of how it's structured, it can move backwards through time as well.

The majority are satisfied living within the idea of the reality instead of the reality of the idea.

It is very difficult to motivate people to revolution when they are extremely comfortable and well off.

Don't judge a man by the size of his ego or his heart, but on the epicness of his beard and the beautiful woman on his arm

Freedom lies at the heart of my willingness to lose everything

The pyramids are one of those things that live up to the hype. They're elemental in ways that are hard to describe.

The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury.

I was hedging my bets by the time I got to college. I was interested in drama and journalism and psychology.

Life is a gift, not to possess, but to share.

Make the universe your companion, always bearing in mind the true nature of things-mountains and rivers, trees and grasses, and humanity-and enjoy the falling blossoms and the scattering leaves.

I mean, there are things in the book you could never do in a movie.