When I have trouble writing, I step outside my studio into the garden and pull weeds until my mind clears--I find weeding to be the best therapy there is for writer's block.

Art is amoral; so is life. For me there are no obscene pictures or books; there are only poorly conceived and poorly executed ones.

His mind was like a soup dish, wide and shallow; it could hold a small amount of nearly anything, but the slightest jarring spilled the soup into somebody's lap

I cannot draw a human figure if I don't know the order of his bones, muscles or tendons. Same is that I cannot draw a human face if I don't know what's going on his mind and heart. In order to paint life one must understand not only anatomy, but what people feel and think about the world they live in. The painter who knows his own craft and nothing else will turn out to be a very superficial artist.

Misery is the only thing in the world that has no end or edge.

What we know of others is our personal secret.

I do not know a better cure for mental illness than a book.