Words are small straitjackets when put around creative flourishes and maneuverings.

Our bodies, apart from their brilliant role as drawing exercises, are the temples of our being. Like the bodies of all fauna, they deserve both our study and our appreciation.

The problem with University degrees, particularly the more spectacular ones, is that people who possess them can fall into the trap of thinking people who don't have them don't know anything.

The centipede has rhythm and flow in its hundred legs precisely because it does not have to think about it. Consider this the next time you move the instruments of your art.

The job of art is to turn time into things.

A drawing a day keeps the cobwebs away.

One of the ways to learn is to know when you're making failures.

The brilliance of art as a collectible is that it has a way of reaching out on an emotional level. It touches on mystery, even spirituality.

Keep busy while you are waiting for something to happen.

Art is a form of love. Art is the ultimate gift. Art heals life.

The only bad studio is the unused one.

Better to be caught in sudden, complete catastrophe than to be gnawed by the cancer of imagination.

The best thing that can come with success is the knowledge that it is nothing to long for.

We used to be "shiftless and lazy," now we're "fearsome and awesome." I think the black man should take pride in that.

[Alessandro Michele] is finally made clothing for men that is as fun to wear as the clothes that women get to wear. That's not often the case. There's a sense of joy and celebration in it.

I love that pre-mod jazz look of the late Fifties, the Steve McQueen style that influenced the British modernists.

I remember being so young I thought all artists were famous.

Trying to observe the slow shift from self-centeredness to empathy is like trying to watch grass grow.

I have many debates now with friends on the changes, and the continuing confusion over bringing up your children, instilling values, letting them make the right choices.

I don't want to be Tom Cruise. I'm not after some movie blockbuster career. That's not the kind of work I'm interested in. And frankly, it's not the kind of work I'm ever going to get.

If you are born black, it is better to be born now than in any other time in United States history. My grandson is black. His life is a different life than if he had been born when I was born.