I've had moments where I've met people who were complete, like, idiots, who could not understand visual culture to save their lives.

I think there's something important in going against the grain, and perhaps finding value in things that aren't necessarily institutionally recognized.

This is something that, as artists, we constantly deal with-throwing away the past, slaying the father, and creating the new. This desire to throw away the old rules.

The backgrounds by design are a very key part of the conversation, because I want a kind of fight or pressure to exist between the figure and the background.

All art is self-portraiture.

Painting is situational. And my particular situation exists within gender, race, class, sexuality, nation.

I believe that artists should be part of the culture. I think that my work clearly bears that out.

The art world has become so insular. The rules have become so autodidactic that, in a sense, they lose track of what people have any interest in thinking about, talking about or even looking at.

We have a lot of sort of received historical ways of viewing portraiture. And I suppose in some way I'm sort of questioning that by toying with the rules of the game.

We're wired to be empathetic and to care about the needs of others, but also to be curious about others. And I think that's just sort of in our DNA. And so portraiture is a very human act.

I guess art is in the eye of the beholder.

A secret's worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept.

What a person praises is perhaps a surer standard, even than what he condemns, of his own character, information and abilities.

Our estimates suggest that a tax increase of 1 percent of GDP reduces output over the next three years by nearly 3 percent. The effect is highly significant.

The most revolutionary thing you can do is get to know your neighbors.

Prayer is as mighty as God, because He has committed Himself to answer it.

Paradise can take the form of anything! It can be a flower or it can be a word or it can just be a sincere smile!

It's better to burn brightly for half as long than to be a dim lingering light.

Don't tell me that [broken heartstrings] hurt less than a broken bone, that an ingrown life is something surgeons can cut away, that there's no way for it to metastasize - it does.

Life experience makes the best music. That's the thing that nobody else can offer. Nobody else can offer my life. I have a life that is fit for movies, music, and so forth. Nobody else can give that.

Anything that has been accomplished by any other human being in the physical realm is within the field of possibility.