I'm an abstract painter not just for myself, but because I really believe in abstraction.

I love the idea of hitchhiking into the city. It was bizarre.

I'm a professional artist, that's how I make my living. So I watch the market. There is, it seems to me, a lot of pure financial speculation, and I don't think that's terribly healthy. Though as long as the money is getting back to the artist, I think that's good. I'm very happy younger artists can make money faster than we could. And we were making it faster than a generation before us.

I've always worn a hat when I work. I think it also comes from a picture of Rothko I saw with a painter's hat on.

I don't remember any dream. All I remember is waking up and feeling that there had been a change while I was sleeping.

Western artists stand as humans looking at nature; Asian artists try to be in nature. You become one with nature rather than painting a portrait of it. That's a big shift.

Every time I open the paper, there's some symphony orchestra collapsing somewhere in the United States. What the hell is going on? And then you find out that the board members try to run these things as businesses.