If you study a great work of art, you'll probably find the artist was a kind of genius. And geniuses are different to you and me.

Being a good artist is the toughest job you could pick, and you have to be a little nuts to take it on.

My aim in life isn't so much the pursuit of happiness as the happiness of pursuit.

Art collectors are pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. What matters and survives is the art.

By and large, talent is in such short supply that mediocrity can be taken for brilliance rather more than genius can go undiscovered.

Nothing is as uplifting as standing before a great painting whether it was painted in 1505 or last Tuesday.

Be the Worst You Can Be: Life's Too Long for Patience and Virtue

The fact that in the last 10 years only five of the 40 Turner Prize nominees have been painters tells you more about curators than about the state of painting today.

There are no rules about investment. Sharks can be good. Artist's dung can be good. Oil on canvas can be good.

I don't buy art in order to leave a mark or to be remembered; clutching at immortality is of zero interest to anyone sane.

Nobody can give you advice after you've been collecting for a while. If you don't enjoy making your own decisions, you're never going to be much of a collector anyway.

Those extra letters dangling at the ends of words are the genitalia of grammar.

All a man can see while looking at the sky are cosmic fossils of thousands and millions of years ago. The only thing an astrologer can predict, is the past.

To destroy is still the strongest instinct in nature.

In America there are two classes of travel - first class, and with children.

I don't understand the mechanics behind things, so a site that I find impressive may not really be more technologically advanced than something which is ostensibly uninteresting.

That's what my mother doesn't understand about my lipstick and dark clothes. I don't wear tattoos to freak her out; I wear them because I have to. It's me.

Nothing sinister. Just getting exercise. Although some might consider that sinister.

The reality is that a brand can no longer afford to be "friends with everyone."

Strength of body, strength of mind, strength of character, qualities to be admired in any person.

These days, everything is magnified very quickly by the media - the slightest slip can turn into a catastrophe.