You could own coins but you couldn't have bars of gold. We were on the gold standard. I think it was Nixon who took us off the gold standard.

Every time you work, you have to do it all over again, to rid yourself of this dross. I suppose for a person who is not an artist or not attempting art, it is not dross, because it is the common exchange of everyday life.

Artists tend to be beyond embarrassment the way little children tend to be beyond embarrassment.

When I came to New York, it was cheap!

Art is what we do. Culture is what is done to us. A photograph of an art object is not the art object. An essay about an artist's work is not the artist's work.

Why carve? It's a better sculpture that way. I'll never improve the block. So I just started using uncarved blocks.

Once you turn something into something, its universal usage is over.