I'm not at all interested in painting the object just as it is in nature. Certainly I'm much more interested in the mood of a thing than the truth of a thing.

I search for the realness, the real feeling of a subject, all the texture around it... I always want to see the third dimension of something... I want to come alive with the object.

Believe in yourself and believe in love. Love something.

Most artists look for something fresh to paint; frankly I find that quite boring. For me it is much more exciting to find fresh meaning in something familiar.

I think one's art goes as far and as deep as one's love goes.

I don't think that there is anything that is really magical unless it has a terrifying quality.

If you clean it up, get analytical, all the subtle joy and emotion you felt in the first place goes flying out the window.

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn't show.

When you lose your simplicity, you lose your drama.

I think you have to use your eyes as well as your emotion, and one without the other just doesn't work

What you have to do is break all the rules.

So in my uncertainty, I went to graduate school and there it all happened

The living are more demanding

The fig tree had dropped its fruit all over the ground. Ripe figs lay in the dust, exploded, bloody, as if the sky had rained organs.

We are all the children of God

Really annoys me any time I see Asian fusion too. Asia is a big place; which Asian are you talking about? You notice it's never Uzbek or Tajik food. It's Thai, and it's generally insulting.

I'm not someone who's led my life trying to get publicity; I'd rather do my work and go home.

God understands. And God understands that part of us which is more than we think we are.

When I'm not working, I'm definitely a no-makeup girl. The most I ever do is a little tinted moisturizer and a little mascara and blush.

My idealism is clearly one reason I'm an artist. I see art as one of mankind's more sublime acts, as a vital counterbalance to our base impulses .

There's a special place in my heart for the ones who were with me at my lowest and still loved me when I wasn't very loveable.