But the existence of a cult does not mean that images appropriate to it automatically follow.

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt; perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.

A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop.

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt.

Confidence is the prize given to the mediocre

A Gustave Courbet portrait of a trout has more death in it than Rubens could get in a whole Crucifixion.

One gets tired of the role critics are supposed to have in this culture: It's like being the piano player in a whorehouse; you don't have any control over the action going on upstairs.

Why wait for a call when you have a command?

Political stress is always apt to shrink the private arena and attach it on to the public

Popular in our time, unpopular in his. So runs the stereotype of rejected genius.

It is the nature of carnivores to get power and then, having disposed of their enemies, to deploy the emollient powers of Great Art to make themselves look like herbivores.

It was a small church. No large cathedral towers overshadowed the purpose of the house of worship. It was a monument to faith rather than a monument to man’s triumph over nature.

Curiosity did not kill the cat all by itself.

I want to get a tattoo of the word irony, only misspelled.

As one lamp serves to dispel a thousand years of darkness, so one flash of wisdom destroys ten thousand years of ignorance.

Writing is so difficult that I feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter.

Hoarding knowledge ultimately erodes your power. If you know something important, the way to get power is by sharing it.

People get ready...Jesus is coming!

Indian enterprises seemed to work so well they produced disasters; success made them burst at the seams and the disruption of unprecedented orders led to shortages and finally failure.

Take out the kernel of spiritual truth with any faith, and what is left is dogma.

As it becomes longer at No. 1, I feel more and more pressure. Everybody is trying to grab every piece of me.