A collection makes its own demands. Many artists have been collectors. I think of it rather as an illness. I felt it was using up too much energy.

I am isolated as an artist, not as a person.

I look at my pictures, and I think, 'Well, how did I do that?

When I finish a painting, it usually looks as surprising to me as to anyone else.

I don't look at the work of my contemporaries very much; I tend to look at pictures by dead artists. It's much easier to get near their paintings.

I think that words are often extraneous to what I do.

You keep on balancing and balancing and balancing until the picture wins, because then the subject's turned into the picture.