My peers at the time: you know, young black kids from off the streets of Harlem, having these conversations with me in my small, dirty little studio up in Harlem.

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.

To be inefficient and effective is better than being efficient and ineffective.

Do you remember a time when men were men? When they would do anything for love, for their friends or for their country?'No, I don't, but at least I would love to read about those men!

There's never been a blueprint, I just keep exploring doors as they open. But whenever people would ask me what's my favorite thing to do, it was sitting in for Larry King.

When I lose, it doesn't just go to my head; it goes to my heart too. If you're at all in the match, if you love to play and ein, it must go to your heart.

In England, rock music very rarely infiltrates the charts, but country music even less so.

True maturity is only reached when a man realizes he has become a father figure to his girlfriends' boyfriend - and he accepts it

Love is made by two people, in different kinds of solitude. It can be in a crowd, but in an oblivious crowd.

We tend to think of the problems of globalization and cultural identity as peculiar to our times. In fact they are rooted in ancient problems of civic belonging.

The past becomes a texture, an ambience to our present.

I'm the only person I know that's lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year. It's very character-building.