There is something mysterious in this work that I do not ever what to discover.

Painting is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see.

Frustration is one of the great things in art. Satisfaction is nothing.

There's some mysterious process at work here, which I don't even want to understand.

Usually I am on a work for a long stretch, until a moment arrives when the air of the arbitrary vanishes, and the paint falls into positions that feel destined.

We are image-makers and image-ridden... We work until we vanish.

To paint is a possessing rather than a picturing.

Painting seems like some kind of peculiar miracle that I need to have again and again.

Look at any inspired painting. It's like a gong sounding; it puts you in a state of reverberation.

To paint is always to start at the beginning again, yet being unable to avoid the familiar arguments about what you see yourself painting.

I am a night painter, so when I come into the studio the next morning the delirium is over.

To succeed in life you need five things – a burning desire, a willingness to do whatever it takes, wisdom, incredible effort, and a commitment to never-ending improvement.

A...reason we are so-so scientists is that our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not.

If you have to dwell on anything, think of noble pure thoughts.

What I can do, I will do. What I can't do, I will surrender to the one that can.

Just as there is no substitute for original works of art, there is no substitute for the world of direct sensual experience.

My health is the No. 1 concern and my longevity is the No. 1 concern.

Cat will have you staked in five seconds flat.

I'd much rather go out having America shocked than having America go, 'Eh, it was his time.'

It's just about really being sensitive, and trying to play a music that is about music.

God made the water but men made the wine.