The first thing I do is take Polaroids of the sitter - 10 or 12 color Polaroids and eight or 10 black-and whites.

All the fingerprint paintings are done without a grid.

Never let anyone define what you are capable of by using parameters that don’t apply to you.

If you're overwhelmed by the size of a problem, break it down into smaller pieces.

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.

While photography is the easiest medium in which to be competent, it is the hardest in which to develop an idiosyncratic personal vision.

Inspiration is for amateurs.

Ease is the enemy of the artist. When things get too easy, you're in trouble.

I always thought that one of the reasons why a painter likes especially to have other painters look at his or her work is the shared experience of having pushed paint around.

The thing that interests me about photography, and why it's different from all other media, is that it's the only medium in which there is even the possibility of an accidental masterpiece.

Sculpture occupies real space like we do... you walk around it and relate to it almost as another person or another object.

Do your actions define who you are, or does your purpose define why you are?

You never depart from us, but yet, only with difficulties do we return to You.

People change, but there really are limits. One thing you discover in psychoanalytic treatment is the limits of what you can change about yourself or your life. We are children for a very long time.

Opposition strengthens the manly will.

The first thing I ever bought for myself was a green Lacoste shirt.

Good work is the only thing that would make me feel jealous or envious.

Language is an archaeological vehicle... the language we speak is a whole palimpsest of human effort and history.

What if the universe were whispering in my ear at every moment?

Seventy million books in America's libraries, but the one you want to read is always out.