Work grows out of other work, and there are very few eureka moments

One cannot set out to make a work that's spiritual. What is a contemporary iconography for the spiritual? Is it some fuzzy space?

A work will only have deep resonance if the kind of darkness I can generate is something that is resident in me already

Red, of course, is the colour of the interior of our bodies. In a way it's inside out, red.

The work itself has a complete circle of meaning and counterpoint. And without your involvement as a viewer, there is no story.

All ideas grow out of other ideas

Artists don't make objects. Artists make mythologies.

If you get a bad review, you take that in your stride.

I think I understand something about space. I think the job of a sculptor is spatial as much as it is to do with form.

One doesn't make art for other people, even though I am very concerned with the viewer

That freedom that Picasso afforded himself, to be an artist in a huge number of ways, seems to be a huge psychological liberation.

The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.

Starlets were always turning up dead in people's pools. They fished them out like goldfish. Nobody seemed to find it unusual that so many young, beautiful women wanted to die.

Creativity is about connecting things. The key to genius is knowing how to make those connections.

Never allow anyone embarrass you without your consent.

When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.

If you're creative, they let you be the showrunner, producer. The first thing my partner and I did as producers was hire ourselves as directors - because who else would hire me?

Russia's most precious resource is the brain power of this country. And you've got a lot of it. It's going to take a lot of brains in Russia to create a drain.

Religion often is misused for purely power-political goals, including war.

Sooner or later people will learn to recognize your worth

I've had an interesting life.