Art and writing come from somewhere down around the lizard brain. It's a much more peculiar activity than we like to think it is. The problems arise when we try to domesticate the practice, to pretend that it's a normal human activity and that "everybody's creative." They're not.

With the artists, I don't teach, I coach. I can't tell them how to make art. I tell them to make more art. I tell them to get up early and stay up late. I tell them not to quit. I tell them if somebody else is already making their work. My job is to be current with the discourse and not be an asshole. That's all I wanted in a professor.

Art editors and critics - people like me - have become a courtier class.

Gossip is the currency of the discourse, so you should shut up about yourself. Never confess, never explain, never apologize, and never complain.

Bad taste is real taste, of course, and good taste is the residue of someone else's privilege.

My mother was an economics professor. I'm proficient in math, and statistics, game theory, symbolic logic and all of that.

I don't think the government should touch art. Governments are risk averse. They encourage risk-averse personalities to be artists.