If you can see a world within a portrait I would be happy with that. I don't want to tell the story with a painting, though. I'm trying to get away from the story- from the beginning and the ending.

I sometimes use music as way of getting back to a certain time, dredging up stuff from the past and putting it down on canvas.

Some of my work is very instinctive, some of my favourite things I've ever done are just two minute sketches, nothing is better when you get it like that so quick, then other work takes months.

I don't really need to be inspired by literature though. At the end of the day it's colour and imagery moved around until it works.

Women really like the horses, more so than men.

Sometimes I just want to sit and write at a clean table and not get paint all over my hands.

Painting can be like poetry but as somebody who creates both I feel the necessity for both so they cant be that similar. Sometimes I think it's as basic as not wanting to get dirty.

The spirit of a painting is very hard to explain and articulate. I can't say it's not intentional because that is the mark I'm trying to hit, however I don't feel I have much control over it.

I used to use a lot of words in the paintings but stopped because it created a narrative - or an answer to a question.

I have no way of knowing what you are going to feel when you look at one of my paintings; I only know what I feel.

I like to listen to a lot of classical music when I'm painting, the most simplistic stuff I can find. I like simple piano.

One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been.

Our town was known for two things--no, three: salted fish, expertly dyed fabrics, and corruption.

There is hardly anything in the world that some man can't make a little worse and sell a little cheaper and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.

You can change friends but not neighbours.

Memory feeds a culture, nourishes hope and makes a human, human.

We pray to you, O God ... for strength, determination, and willpower, to do instead of just to pray, to become instead of merely to wish.

Human sacrifice is much in vogue right now. The Republican right thinks that people who get on its nerves, especially women, should be sent to the stake. . .

At least they [people] showed the world we could elect a black president.

Few concepts are as basic as the role of workers in our economic structure and their participation in equity ownership.

People are put into your life for seasons, for different reasons, and to teach you lessons.