I think we seem to remember things in still pictures. I never gave up on painting. When they said painting was dead, I just thought, Well, that's all about photography, and photography's not that interesting, and it's changing anyway.

All art is contemporary, if it's alive, and if it's not alive, what's the point of it?

Great claims are being made for the photograph as truth. We are showing you things, we show you the war. I say you can't actually. The camera can't.

Cubism was an attack on the perspective that had been known and used for 500 years. It was the first big, big change. It confused people: they said, 'Things don't look like that!'

I actually think the deafness makes you see clearer. If you can't hear, you somehow see.

I have always believed that art should be a deep pleasure...ther e is always, everywhere, an enormous amount of suffering. But I believe my duty as an artist is to overcome and alleviate the sterility of despair...New ways of seeing mean new ways of feeling... I do believe that painting can change the world.

I never work with music. I hate background music, always did. I only like music in the foreground, meaning, deliberately listen to it, actually.