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.

The picture surface recedes just as much in the 20th century as it did in the 15th. The techniques of making pictures have hardly changed.

Collecting has been my great extravagance. It's a way of being. I collect for the same reason that I eat too much-I'm one of nature's shoppers.

I'm very envious of the few artists who are any good and still do portraits.

I find old copies of National Gallery catalogues, which are written in the dryest possible prose, infinitely soothing.

I am happy for people to talk about my pictures, but I wish devoutly that I was not expected to talk about them myself.

My friends tend to be writers. I think writers and painters are really all the same-we just sit in our rooms.