When you make the obvious mysterious, then the mysterious becomes unavailable.

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 want to build / and raise anew / Theseus' Temple and the Stadiums / and where Pericles livedBut there's no money, too much spent today / I had a guest over and we sat together.

The shame of living extends its tentacles around my dreams.

Peter Ustinov was the first really positive influence in my career. He was real and he bore witness to it. The things he said to you, he lived them.

When you try to figure out what the religious right is, it ultimately comes down either to one man, Pat Robertson, or anyone who believes in a higher being and wants their taxes cut.

I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood.

When I was first drafted, I was just happy that any team wanted to take me, but it was the Red Wings, and that made it better.

An actor's job is about putting across the author's intention; I don't think of myself on the same level as a creator.

We easily enough confess in others an advantage of courage, strength, experience, activity, and beauty; but an advantage in judgment we yield to none.

It's not what the world gives you, but what you can give it. I'm lucky. I can give the world talent. I can explain it and show it to people. That's what I love doing. I just love it.

Even if your heart is broken and attacking you, you're still not better off without it.