Talent is like a seed which needs fertile soil. There is no less talent now, there is less fertile soil to nourish it.

Making art is like swimming underwater in a blindfold.

An ivory tower is a fine place as long as the door is open.

No high-minded painter of the last fifty years has been able to come to terms with his art without coming to terms with the problem of cubism.

Most people find facts irritating. Facts interfere with their systems of denial.

What is sublime? / the artist said. / I haven't time / to be well read. / To be sub lime / I'll place, instead, / green citrus fruit / upon my head.

Always let intuitive perception precede analysis.

Postmodernism is Modernism with Alzheimer's.

Writing about art is only useful when it leads to the experience of art.

When you are painting a landscape, assume the painting is real and the landscape is an illusion.

Postmodernism is silly and joyless at the same time.

Working with plants will teach you all other social commitments in a soothing way...

I look back on my life like a good day's work it is done and I am satisfied with it.

It's an awful truth that suffering can deepen us, give a greater lustre to our colours, a richer resonance to our words.

I think I'll be going to Heaven, because I had good intentions. But my actions are another thing.

The cry for love and communion and for recognition that rises from the hearts of people in need reveals the fountain of love in us and our capacity to give life.

Friendship is not possible between two women one of whom is very well dressed.

Liberty is meaningless if it is only the liberty to agree with those in power.

It's always been the case that you have the really rich, and the really poor. But hey, look, all the great empires have their periods where they rule the world, and then they crumble.

There are days when I intentionally don't write. For instance, I never write when I'm traveling, because travel is a situation where I can learn more by looking and listening than by working.

Greece, sound, thy Homer's, Rome thy Virgil's name, But England's Milton equals both in fame.