Making art is complicated because the categories are always changing. You just have to make your own art, and whatever categories it falls into will come later.

I don't like a lot of the stuff that goes on in the art world, but it's hard to be old and like what goes on around you.

Scarlatti [Kirkpatrick] started writing sonatas when he was 66 and the idea that he ran off 500 or so after he was 66 was just too much for me to resist. It's just great.

It's hard to say that my twenties were the most miserable time in my life or that my first wife drove me crazy or that I hated the job that I had. You can say all of those things. But for the most part, people manage to have a good time when they're that age.

One learns about painting by looking at and imitating other painters.

I want to make exalted art. A successful image has pictorial lift. I am looking for whatever is up there

One learns about painting by looking at and imitating other painters. I can't stress enough how important it is, if you are interested at all in painting, to look and to look a great deal at painting. There is no other way to find out about painting.