All profoundly original art looks ugly at first.

Where the Old Masters created an illusion of space into which one could imagine walking, the illusion created by a Modernist is one into which one can look, can travel through, only with the eye.

Complete honesty has nothing to do with 'purity' or naivety. The full truth is unattainable to naivety, and the completely honest artist is not pure in heart.

If you want to change your art, change your habits.

Realistic, naturalistic art had dissembled the medium, using art to conceal art; Modernism used art to call attention to art.

Art is a matter strictly of experience, not of principles and what counts first and last in art is quality, all other things are secondary.

You like it, that's all, whether it's a landscape or abstract. You like it. It hits you. You don't have to read it. The work of art-sculpture or painting-forces your eye.

The reality of art is disclosed only in experience, not in reflection upon experience.

When you don't like something the words come more readily.

With an 'advanced' artist, it's not now possible to make a portrait.

The difficulty of carrying on a leisure-oriented tradition of culture in a work-oriented society is enough in itself to keep the present crisis in our culture unresolved.

This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.

You get what you want and you become its slave.

But even though Ruth's only a hair thinner than I am, she's way on the other side of the fat girl spectrum, looking at me from the safe, slightly smug distance of her own control and conviction.

Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods and day by day the dead leaves fall and melt.

It is often argued that left-handed batsmen have an advantage compared with the right-handers. I do not agree.

Its hard for me to grasp that I might somehow be my fathers equal in any way.

And it makes you wonder—how can a people incapable of selecting their own lightbulbs and toilets possess enough competence to vote for their own rulers and fill out complicated tax returns?

I had my first kiss when I was 11, but I think I've blocked it out of my mind because it was so bad. I'm not even sure it counts as a kiss.

I write poems to figure things out

I always, always want to make people laugh. In every situation. Even when it's inappropriate.