Good art looks new because the artist has recombined something old to make something better.

Making art is like swimming underwater in a blindfold.

An ivory tower is a fine place as long as the door is open.

No high-minded painter of the last fifty years has been able to come to terms with his art without coming to terms with the problem of cubism.

Most people find facts irritating. Facts interfere with their systems of denial.

What is sublime? / the artist said. / I haven't time / to be well read. / To be sub lime / I'll place, instead, / green citrus fruit / upon my head.

Always let intuitive perception precede analysis.

Postmodernism is Modernism with Alzheimer's.

Writing about art is only useful when it leads to the experience of art.

When you are painting a landscape, assume the painting is real and the landscape is an illusion.

Postmodernism is silly and joyless at the same time.

Loyalty and devotion lead to bravery. Bravery leads to the spirit of self-sacrifice. The spirit of self-sacrifice creates trust in the power of love.

The trouble with a kitten is that eventually it becomes a cat.

Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it's something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles.

Training was one thing, reality another.

I was hooked on writing. I mean, where else can you get paid for sticking your nose into somebody else's business?

I'm chairman of the Republican Governors Association.

I'm trying to capture a moment. It's not about the singer at the microphone. I'm trying to look for, like, a moment in between.

I'm being all of me, and it feels stupendous. I don't want to leave this feeling.

You cannot not communicate.

I can inhabit any character in a way that is difficult to do successfully in a contemporary novel.