You have to have a high conception, not of what you are doing, but of what you may do one day: without that, there's no point in working.

Painting is easy when you don't know how but very difficult when you do.

Drawing is not what you see but what you must make others see.

A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people.

You must aim high, not in what you are going to do at some future date, but in what you are going to make yourself do to-day. Otherwise, working is just a waste of time.

Conversation in real life is full of half-finished sentences and overlapping talk. Why shouldn't painting be too?

Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.

The true traveler never arrives.

No art is less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and the study of the great masters.

Everyone has talent at twenty-five. The difficulty is to have it at fifty.

He once said that he wished to be famous, but unknown.

The worst thing about being unhappy is not being strong enough to leave the situation.

Inside of every good person there is also something very wild.

John Calhoun, if you secede from my nation I will secede your head from the rest of your body.

If you think that I'm nuts, you may be right. But I'm a nut with a positive attitude, baby!

I didn't think I could go onstage and play unless I had a beer to loosen up. Well, if it was only one beer to loosen up, I'd probably still be drinking today.

I could not write about a subject sacred to me because I would be too flippant. Fortunately, there are no subjects sacred to me.

I remember the review from Michael Wilmington in Chicago, and Gene Siskel wrote really smart reviews where I thought, "Oh, they totally get what we're attempting to do."

The air travel industry moves into a new phase every five to six years.

Celebrate your victories and mark your defeats. Ultimately documentary filmmaking is not a job, it's a calling.

But fish not with this melancholy bait For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.