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.

In the United States there has been a kind of a structure in the Modern art world. The New York School was nearly a coherent thing-for a minute.

I'm vulnerable to criticism. Any artist is, because you work alone in your studio and, until recently, critics were the only way you'd get any feedback.

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

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

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.

In England, it's thought to be morally suspect to worry about what your surroundings look like.