If you're fortunate enough with your history, like with Men in the Cities, your work becomes so absorbed in culture that the authorship of it doesn't exist anymore.

An artist should know art history. Shock value only lasts so long.

It's weird making a drawing of painting. I start to realize that charcoal is this incredibly fragile material. I'm making images of paintings out of dust.

An artist can have an intention, but the viewer has their own subjective experience.

The artist has to be a guardian of the culture.

When I look back on everything I've done, it all somehow makes sense to me. But it doesn't make sense when you're actually doing it.

The translation process becomes a highly subjective thing - turning reds and blues into black-and-whiteness. It's really bizarre for me.

I'm trying to find answers. It can be quite frustrating, but at the same time, I'm never quite satisfied with what I'm doing, so I'm always looking for the next thing.

There are no guidelines for what happens when you get successful as an artist. My heroes were artists like Acconci, and he didn't make any money. That's what I thought success was.

A lot of us grew up in public. That often means that you have to fail in public too.

I've been dealing with epic images, and I realized all of a sudden that I grew up in the age of epics.

Education and knowledge are no longer values of truth and beauty that make life worth living- they are reduced to an economic means to the ends of greater pay and more consumption.

Dying? Not the end of everything. We think it is. But what happens on earth is only the beginning.

I wasn't a very discriminating reader. I read just about everything that came along.

We're achieving better marbling and better flavor with old world wisdom that's been passed down for generations but we're still using technology.

I laugh at those who think they can damage me. They do not know who I am, they do not know what I think, they cannot even touch the things which are really mine and with which I live.

Nas is one of the Greatest Ever. Never has and never will need a ghostwriter. That man’s pen and legacy is without question.

I didn't push Cory. I wanted him to decide if he wanted to go into boxing and he did. Can't blame it on me.

Every genuine confession humbles the soul. When it takes the form of thanksgiving, it teaches the soul that it has been delivered by the grace of God.

The deadliest foe of democracy is not autocracy but liberty frenzied.

I've always tried different stuff in the studio. I use rakes, spoons, cans... I'm a surround-sound type of guy.