I think a lot of people take a scholarly approach where they feel like you're supposed to study things that depress you.

I find I can't get rid of my trashiness as an artist. A lot of my themes in painting, to the extent that there are intentional themes, are meant to bring that conundrum into high relief.

I'd like to get the sex thing over with, but I realized I'm not done with it. You should never will a change in your work - you have to work an idea to death. I often find that the best things happen when you're near the end.

It wasn't really until after I got out of art school that I realized that I'd been doing that sort of for the audience, for that context. Somehow, being alone in the room, it made no sense at all to make those kinds of paintings.

I think a big problem with art school is that it makes people feel like they have to be interested in everything that's of high quality.

I suppose the good artists, the righteous artists, somehow manage to be exuberant, and the embarrassed artist has this idea that everybody has to stop being so excited, which I find so distasteful.

When I went to college, and I went to art school, I started to realize that Warhol was cool and that pop art was fun.