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

I never think that anything I do is courageous.

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.

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

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.

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 am isolated as an artist, not as a person.