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

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

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.

There are no rules about investment. Sharks can be good. Artist's dung can be good. Oil on canvas can be good.

The most abiding memory of visiting Lucian Freud's studio were his eyes, with the gimlet gaze of a Hooded Falcon. But he made for very relaxing company, quick to be amused at the world and his own peccadilloes. He enjoyed the seedy squalor of his rooms in a posh house in the most desirable part of Holland Park, and living up to his persona as an oddball bohemian.

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

If I stop being on good behaviour for a moment, my dark little secret is that I don't actually believe many people in the art world have much feeling for art and simply cannot tell a good artist from a weak one, until the artist has enjoyed the validation of others - a received pronunciation.