I think people have problems sometimes when things are too general. In fact, they are not really general at all.

Painting is like breathing to me. It’s what I do all the time. Every day I make art, whether it is painting, writing or making a movie.

Everything I've seen becomes real once it becomes memory. The films I've seen are interchangeable with things that have really happened to me.

I like when people get really close to the paintings, when they can't really get away from them, I like them to operate in that way on the viewer.

There are certain times you want to be here and there are certain times you want to just go. And when you go, it's usually so exhausting you have to check into a hospital when you come home!

When I made my first film, Basquiat, I think one of the criticisms was that the way I work is episodic. Later, as people started to look at the movies, they started to realize that maybe that's my style. If I could do it better or another way, I guess I would.

I don't like building, I'm not a carpenter, I don't like constructions particularly and things like that, but placements and the kinds of psychological weight that different materials have is pretty interesting to me.