As an artist, I have been a risk-taker. And I've done a lot of different things. I don't make it easy for people. Identification is difficult. One doesn't recognize my art right away.

The artist is not responsible to any one. His social role is asocial... his only responsibility consists in an attitude to the work he does.

What counts most is finding new ways to get the world down in paint on my own terms.

I begin with an idea, but as I work, the picture takes over. Then there is the struggle between the idea I preconceived... and the picture that fights for its own life.

Women don't paint very well. It's a fact. There are, of course, exceptions. Agnes Martin or, from the past, Paula Modersohn-Becker.

An object painted upside down is suitable for painting because it is unsuitable as an object.

I had always loved expressionist painting, like every European. In fact I admired it all the more because these were precisely the paintings despised by my father's generation.

Art is visceral and vulgar - it's an eruption.

I hang my work upside down to emphasize surface.

The reality is the picture, it is most certainly not in the picture.

What I could never escape was Germany, and being German.

Having the right attitude is fundamental to being an effective leader.

friendship is the only cure for hatred, the only guarantee of peace.

Sometimes when you're fighting, fighting, fighting, the mind needs some time off and you regroup and get back to normal.

I am endorsed by some of the greatest business people in the world.

Nothing ought to be more weighed than the nature of books recommended by public authority. So recommended, they soon form the character of the age.

To this day, I still would choose the angst over something easier, when I really don't have to.

I found out long ago, it's a long way down the holiday road. Holiday road, holiday road. Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. Take a ride on the West Coast kick. Holiday road.

I'm not a big fan of horror movies, especially the recent teen-slasher sort of ones.

Every day, President Obama sends a beautiful message about how we should treat our women based on how he treats his wife. When people went after his wife during the campaign, he took a stand.

There is so much division in this world. So what is really the path of healing? It can begin in this moment, by embracing the life that's here.