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 words come between the spectator and the picture.

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.

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

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

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

Eventually, a collection ceases to be a personal indulgence and assumes its own identity. In fact, it becomes a thing in its own right - rather like Frankenstein's monster.