I always try to make everyone mellow down, make sure everybody's happy. The people I have employed have always kind of stayed with us. A lot of people who come to work for you are artists in their own right. And they want to work for you because they want to pick something up.

Immortality is really desirable, I guess. In terms of images, anyway.

You've got to be oblivious to other people, the push and pull of other people's opinions, the way other people measure success. It's then that you realize you are 100 percent who you are and you have to use that who-you-are 100 percent in order to create great things.

In an artwork you're always looking for artistic decisions, so an ashtray is perfect. An ashtray has got life and death.

I like the confusion you get between science and religion … that’s where belief lies and art as well.

I love color. I feel it inside me. It gives me a buzz.

Painting is so poetic, while sculpture is more logical and scientific and makes you worry about gravity.