The moment you can learn to deal with homosexuality in art, it's quite an exciting moment, just as in a sense when people 'come out' it's quite an exciting moment. It means they become aware of their desires, and can deal with them in a remarkably honest way.

A lot of people, given the chance, would blow up everything, and you and me.

I've always been a looker. Loads of people say, "I never saw that" - but that's what artists do.

About shadows: do we see shadows? Loads of people don't. A camera will notice a shadow, but how many people have got a shadow in front of them when they take a picture and don't notice it, and then they see it in the photograph because the photograph will catch the shadow.

It's all one to me: opera, painting, drawing, faxes.

What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because of course art is about sharing. You wouldn't be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience, a thought.

Who's going to ask a painter to see a diploma? They'd say, 'Can I see your paintings?', wouldn't they?