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.

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.

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.

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.

God is not a celestial prison warden jangling the keys on a bunch of lifers--he's a shepherd seeking for sheep, a woman searching for coins, a father waiting for his son.

Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.

War is the continuation of politics by other means.

There's always another level up. There's always another ascension. More grace, more light, more generosity, more compassion, more to shed, more to grow.

The only wealth is life.

You made this?' Finn looks at me. 'No, Saint Anthony brought it to me in the night. He was very put out I didn't give it to you right then.

I'm totally at home on the stage. That's where I live. That's where I was born. That's where I'm safe.

When I came here in 1999, all one could hear was the sound of the guns as guns were booming all around. Today I am only hearing clapping of hands.

It never occurs to me that there are things I can't do.

I am thankful that my name in obnoxious to no pun.