We all know what tragedy is. "Yes, I'd rather not have any more tragedy, please. I'll have comedy, please." Comedy, in the Greek sense, only means that it has a happy ending.

I find it very difficult to be funny, it's much easier to do tragedy than it is to do comedy.

When I was in my early twenties I was doing tenant organizing - rent strikes, specifically - in my building. I think that was how I started doing poster art. It was something very concrete.

I think for an artist there are so many things to make pictures of now, that everyone else may be suffering, but at least artists will just be stimulated by it all.

Art grabs people by their eyeballs, it seduces them ... art is a means to an end rather than simply an end in itself.

Illustrators are usually illustrating something big or commercial if not outright advertising. It's a form of prostitution, but that's cool because we don't have any moral hang-up about it.

I don't even believe in magic, or ghosts or anything like that, and yet in a city like New York, on the subway, I definitely see ghosts and art seems to have some magical properties.

Whether it's a street poster on a brick wall, a magazine cover on a newsstand, or animation on a movie screen - art is an effective means of communicating with large numbers of people.

I think so much of art is unconscious anyway, the artist doesn't know the real reason they're doing it. They're just kind of going along with it intuitively.

Art is one of the few ways we have of dealing with things that frighten or anger us.

Art is one of the few places where you can put it in a constructive way where it won't burn you up inside or hurt anyone.

The smell of jasmine makes people tell their secrets

My mom is a really good cook. I didn't get the cooking gene, but she cooks this really amazing dinner every Christmas, and that's always really fun.

People are not very pro-active in general, I think, because we are too busy rushing blindly towards our own goals.

I want a strong military. But I do not believe, among other things, that without an audit, we should be throwing tens of billions of dollars more into the Department of Defense.

William Shakespeare tried hard to see every facet of every question, probably because he was more interested in questions than in answers. That's a big part of what makes him great, in my opinion.

New York is ultimately not the synthesis but merely the sum of its unfathomable subjectivities, its personal histories, its uncategorisable figures.

There is a need for more effective dialogue... between the government and the international community.

Clothing, hair and make-up are just reflective of how I am feeling at any given moment and that varies from day to day.

Only a burning patience will lead to the attainment of a splendid happiness.

I am more a friend of art than a producer of painting.