Art has political consequences, which is to say, it reorganizes society and creates constituencies of people around it.

If I go to London, everyone wants to talk about Damien Hirst. I'm just not interested in him. Never have been.

Martha Stewart contributes more to our civility than the Baptist Church.

I think that if you don't like something and it's not easy, you shouldn't be doing it.

When you really respect somebody who does something different from you, your respect is for the quality of the job.

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 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.