When I left the Royal College, I decided I would only make paintings that I would want to look at myself, that felt close to my life.

The studio is a laboratory, not a factory. An exhibition is the result of your experiments, but the process is never-ending. So an exhibition is not a conclusion.

There's a magic that comes from playing entirely to who you are. I've got my specialist subject - in the Mastermind sense - and I wouldn't change it, or who I am.

In the end, it doesn't really matter what you paint. It's all just a routine to connect yourself finally with other people.

There was a point in time where the thought of people even talking about me made me anxious. Physically.

The studio is a place where I can experiment before I'm prepared for an idea to become a body of work, or a new way of working, or a way of working that can sustain me over a period of time.

Sometimes, as I feel a door or an exit point in my work is closing, I'll try to create an opening so as not to stifle the creative process, which I see as a process that's never-ending.

Often I think changes within my work have been seen as sudden changes or sharp changes, but for me they're not that sudden. They have been there in the studio, but not so much in public.

I'm aware that success can overwhelm you. The perception of you can be elevated to such a status that it's not you any more.

[In the Universe it may be that] Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare. Some would say it has yet to occur on Earth.

No purpose, no science, only love alone can justify and explain the mysteries of creation.

To have and not to give is often worse than to steal.

There are always more smart people outside your company than within it.

A good thing to do when one is sitting, eating, and resting is to have a conversation.

Fights aren't won in the octagon, they're won in the months leading up to them, in a near-empty gym, in the lost hours of a day, whether I feel like it or not.

Be quick without hurrying.

My hands were too soft.. I had to find some special occupation, some kind of work that would not force me to turn away from the sky and the stars, that would allow me to discover the meaning of life.

I don't care what people call me, labels have the negative value of making smaller boundaries for people.

Laughing at something is a form of accepting it or at list making peace with it.