Painting and drawing has been here for 35,000 years.

I avoid the public because the English public is too aggressive these days for me.

It's very British to go about to see something unusual and paint it.

You always need a bit of low-tech.You always need a pair of scissors, it seems to me. You can do better things.... The high-tech, somehow, you do have to combine it with low-tech things.

I stay up nights and fiddle with my opera designs. It's a bit obsessive. That's why I can't do it all the time.

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

I've always said that the only thing a photograph is good at capturing faithfully is another flat surface.