What we really want to do is serve happiness. We want everyone to be happy, never unhappy even for a moment. We want the animals to be happy. The happiness of every living thing is what we want.

Doing what you were born to do … That's the way to be happy.

My paintings are not about what is seen. They are about what is known forever in the mind.

Art is the concrete representation of our most subtle feelings.

When I think of art I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye it is in the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection.

Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye, it is in the mind.

When you look in your mind you find it covered with a lot of rubbishy thoughts. You have to penetrate these and hear what your mind is telling you to do. Such work is original work.

It's through discipline and tremendous disappointment and failure that you arrive at what it is you must paint.

I'm very careful not to have ideas, because they're inaccurate.

Inspiration is there all the time. For everyone whose mind is not clouded over with thoughts whether they realize it or not.

That which takes us by surprise-moments of happiness-that is inspiration.

Even now one rarely hears of people achieving great things unless they first stumble in some respect.

My childhood memories are amazing I had freedom in every way - but I see everything from a different perspective now that I live outside.

A despairing heart is the true prophet of approaching evil; his actions may weave the webs of Fortune, but not break them.

The closed door and the sealed lips are prerequisites to tyranny.

He who confuses political liberty with freedom and political equality with similarity has never thought for five minutes about either.

Losing a basketball game hurts but when you see what you've been through, you look on it and say well if this is the worst thing that can happen to me, then I'm okay.

I work really out of mythology, so often I work out of a story that has remained lodged inside somehow, or I work out of history, you know, out of a sense of historical inevitability with characters.

Live each day as if it be your last.

American journalism is a class institution, serving the rich and spurning the poor.