Being in love is dangerous because you talk yourself into thinking you've never had it so good.

Art is something someone made. It's a product of human endeavor. As such, it's not that different from having a conversation with someone. The painter is telling us something. Just, how do they - what's their syntax? What's their inflection?

I've always read, I've always admired writers and was lucky really to meet some extraordinary ones and become friends. Certain times you just like people, and it grows out like a nautilus shell.

Spend a day talking only in rhyme.

No one's quite figured out how to make the images come to the viewer. I guess if they put it on a conveyor belt, you could stand in one place like at sushi restaurants. That could be a next generation of museums. Someone should try that. I think ideally you want to have a contemplative space for the viewer. And shuffling around like a chain gang does work against that.

If you go to a concert, you will notice, is it loud? Is the music fast? Is it predominately strings or brass? There are things we can all register, whether we are musicians or not. Painting's no different. Taking pleasure in projecting oneself into the painting is the act of looking. That's what looking is.

I'm always very grateful for stories about the great coffeehouse wits in Vienna at the turn of the last century. People would wait for a chance to stand near the table where the great wits were trading witticisms as a spectator sport because it was that good. They were that on fire and there was no product. They didn't write anything down. It was just the pleasure of engagement with the moment. I think that's my kind of ideal of how I live.