If you study a great work of art, you'll probably find the artist was a kind of genius. And geniuses are different to you and me. So let's have no talk of temperamental, self-absorbed and petulant babies. Being a good artist is the toughest job you could pick, and you have to be a little nuts to take it on. I love them all.

Be the Worst You Can Be: Life's Too Long for Patience and Virtue

I don't buy art in order to leave a mark or to be remembered; clutching at immortality is of zero interest to anyone sane.

Many people cycle or swim to keep trim. But if swimming is so good for the figure, how do you explain whales?

Lots of ambitious work by young artists ends up in a dumpster after its warehouse debut. So an unknown artist's big glass vitrine holding a rotting cow's head covered by maggots and swarms of buzzing flies may be pretty unsellable. Until the artist becomes a star. Then he can sell anything he touches .

Artists need a lot of collectors, all kinds of collectors, buying their art.

The art critics on some of Britain's newspapers could as easily have been assigned gardening or travel, and been cheerfully employed for life.