Decades ago, Gerhard Richter found a painterly philosopher's stone. Like Jackson Pollock before him, he discovered something that had been in painting all along, always overlooked or discounted.

John Baldessari, the 79-year-old conceptualist, has spent more than four decades making laconic, ironic conceptual art-about-art, both good and bad.

To engage with art, we have to be willing to be wrong, venture outside our psychic comfort zones, suspend disbelief, and remember that art explores and alters consciousness simultaneously.

Art is a way of showing the outside world what your inside world is like.

All great contemporary artists, schooled or not, are essentially self-taught and are de-skilling like crazy.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is unsurpassed at presenting more than 50 centuries of work. I go there constantly, seeing things over and over, better than I've ever seen them before.

A lot of people still think caring about clothes is a dubious, unserious, frivolous, girlie thing.

The greatest work of art about New York? The question seems nebulous. The city's magic and majesty are distilled in the photographs of Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand.

The secret of food lies in memory - of thinking and then knowing what the taste of cinnamon or steak is.

Outside museums, in noisy public squares, people look at people. Inside museums, we leave that realm and enter what might be called the group-mind, getting quiet to look at art.

In art, scandal is a false narrative, a smoke screen that camouflages rather than reveals. When we don't know what we're seeing, we overreact.

So many wants distract man from his divine purpose.

Life can only be live with great courage.

It's about time we stopped buying things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like.

Alex Ferguson is the best manager I've ever had at this level. Well, he's the only manager I've actually had at this level. But he's the best manager I've ever had.

I generally think debates within a party should not be treated as a scandal. They should be treated as a sign of strength, to be honest.

Stormy in love, stormy in interviews, breakfast in bed - that's me, love.

Darkness is absence of light. Shadow is diminution of light.

You cannot take credit for your talents. It is what you do with them that counts.

There is no better friendship booster than the ability to listen. The ability to show genuine interest in others is an admirable quality of a true friend.

To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength, gives in your weakness strength unto your foe.