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.

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.

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.

A painting is finished when the subject comes back, when what has caused the painting to be made comes back as an object.

I don't really have a historical overview of my work at all. I'm not an art historian. I don't see that there's this period and that period.

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

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.