Art is not delivered like the morning paper; it has to be stolen from Mount Olympus.

If we don't have a sense of humor, we lack a sense of perspective

Common objects become strangely uncommon when removed from their context and ordinary ways of being seen.

If you stare at an object, as you do when you paint, there is no point at which you stop learning things from it.

I think of myself as a beginner. Sometimes that's the whole joy. If you could just do it, there'd be no point in doing it.

I haven't the slightest idea what art is, but to be a painter is something of which you have to prove.

Every paint-stroke takes you farther and farther away from your initial concept. And you have to be thankful for that.

Discipline is not a restriction but an aid to freedom.

I'm not just interested in the pictorial aspects of the landscape - see a pretty place and try to paint it - but in some way to manage it, manipulate it, or see what I can turn it into.

Art means something very rare, an extraordinary achievement.

Commonplace objects are constantly changing… The pies, for example, we now see, are not going to be around forever. We are merely used to the idea that things do not change.

Believe that a further shore is reachable from here.

Work only on problems that are manifestly important and seem to be nearly impossible to solve. That way you will have a natural market for your product and no competition.

But don't try to find an untroublesome woman. She will dull out on you. What makes a woman good in bed makes it impossible for her to live alone.

My answer would be definite yes! Destructive atheism, in my view and the view of the Church, is part of a much larger picture - cosmic warfare, that is, between God and Evil, between God and Satan.

You don’t choose a story, it chooses you.

... you can't put out a light just because it may light the wrong person.

Don't shed any tears for me. I got to live a dream most people don't get to live.

I think women do work differently; it's important to have both men and women. They offer different things.

If you want to lower the significance of Russia in the world, you actually just want to elevate your own country. That is a mistake.