I think it's important to make art that is not that easily absorbable, that is a challenge to the authorities.

I spent a lot of time at the New York Public Library, the main branch. I was one of those people. If you ever spend a good amount of time there, you realize there are people who spend the entire day there. They're bookish homeless people.

I stopped painting because I was so shocked at what I was doing and how much I wasn't in the work. The work was alien to me. I didn't know how to paint in a way that would get me out of this funk.

You have to be polite with your friends and your family, but in your art, it's important to not be polite.

I think it's really important as an artist not to be drawn to the haters, because there are so many people who are nice and quiet.

There was an expression of intensity in dance that was so compelling to me that I wanted a piece of that action.

I think great art goes beyond the control of the artist. In some ways, art often makes itself and reveals things about that artist that maybe the artist is not fully conscious of.