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.

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

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

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.

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

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.