I suppose some people find their voice later than others, but it's interesting to look back at really early work to see that there's some kernel or a Rosetta Stone, in a way.

A good painting has to do about 12 things at once.

I can only think of a handful of artists that can make a funny painting or a funny sculpture without it feeling coined in someway.

I think that painting relates very neatly to inner travel and the exploration of inner worlds. With painting, I always get the impression that you're sort of entering into a shared space.

You have the 20th century wrapping up and everything is moving at this breakneck speed? And then, painting is still walking. It's just a very human activity that takes time.

I think you do kind of slip into a trance when you look at a painting. At least I do.

There are different kinds of concentration required to make a painting, different kinds of being present.

I think, with abstraction, it's easy to fall into a sort of pastiche.

I think painting has that unique potential to project opposing viewpoints.

Technology's always changing. There was a time where oil painting was a new technology. That changed painting.

Paintings exist in the present tense, yet somehow, because of how it's structured, it can move backwards through time as well.

The jump toward joy encompasses your life with boundless energy.

There was no plan for us. We are a misspelling being erased by Death in order for the story of total chaos to continue.

We were all of us alone, kept wrapped up tight by our sins.

I think I've found someone with who I want to spend my life with and that person...Isn't you.

To desire to be an artist is to desire to be a complete man in respect to some one function, to realize yourself utterly. A man is a poor thing who is content not to be an artist.

If you want to touch the other shore badly enough, barring an impossible situation, you will. If your desire is diluted for any reason, you'll never make it.

Better to constantly check in than ride proud on your high horse.

National security - the military is the first thing we should spend money on. You have to fully fund that first. And then you should be paying for everything else.

Yet a man may love a paradox, without losing either his wit or his honesty.

I came from a real working-class show business family.