Culture is for old people. When you're young you have your body, and that's all you need.

A lot of times maturing as an artist is just starting to do the things you like to do.

Your style is who you are when you’re not trying to be clever or better than you actually are.

I find I can't get rid of my trashiness as an artist. A lot of my themes in painting, to the extent that there are intentional themes, are meant to bring that conundrum into high relief.

I think a big problem with art school is that it makes people feel like they have to be interested in everything that's of high quality.

You have to like everything that you're painting. Maybe on a narrative level it seems harsh... but I like everything in all my paintings. It's as if you need to be less intelligent at that level.

There is no misery in art. All art is about saying yes, and all art is about its own making.

I think what I do is find a cliché and try to believe in it, try to get to where I don't laugh at it.

Instead of last man standing, it'll be last man smiling.

It's a huge thing when people realize across the culture that paper money is paper. And that there's no fixed value - it's all political. That all value is set by a political authority, basically.

That was an important development for me, just realizing that you need to follow your pleasure, at least as a painter. I think any kind of artist needs to, no matter what you're doing.

Two Parts. One Whole.

I think poetry's always a kind of faith. It is the kind that I have.

I like playing accents, and doing things like that, it was fun. It was fun.

I think it would be fun to write about movies again.

History tells us what people do; historical fiction helps us imagine how they felt.

Why get up in the morning unless you’re going to have an adventure?

When you look at Darling and the Oscars, it has to be luck. It was a black and white film and it was the last time that there was a black and white Oscar.

I think more people now have relationships with agents than with editors. And I don't have an agent.

To me success would be to be able to do your very best in everything you do.

I'm a tomato freak, but sometimes you have to get it in ketchup form for people to be able to open to tomatoes.