To an art historian a Giotto is a 14th Century painting. To an artist it was painted yesterday. We free ourselves from the past when we see it freshly.

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.

I can change my plans. But I can't change my family.

Let even an affectionate Goliath get himself tied to a small tender thing, dreading to hurt it by pulling, and dreading still more to snap the cord, and which of the two, pray, will be master?

Sometimes the most complex problems can be solved with the simplest solutions.

Asking the right questions is as important as answering them

Paradigms of Republican vs. Democrat or Conservative vs. Progressive have been designed for obfuscation and entertainment.

You take the job very seriously and between action and cut, that's where your focus should be. And then there's a lot of levity in between and a lot of good fun.

I didn't advocate invasion...I wasn't asked.

It's funny: I'm a lifelong musician, but because I principally play the piano it's been a solitary thing.

I'd like people to know that you can head off kidney disease, maybe prevent a transplant or stop the disease from progressing after detection by doing a simple urine test in the doctor's office.

Things thought too long can be no longer thought, For beauty dies of beauty, worth of worth, And ancient lineaments are blotted out.