The experience of beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say. The artist's relation to the object of beauty, how the art makes that happen, is a whole other subject. Beauty is an event. Beauty is something that happens. There is no such thing as a beautiful object or a beautiful woman.

My problem with political art is not that it's bad art necessarily, but that it is terrible politics.

All artists and creative people are basically unhappy people. If you were happy, that would mean you were content with the world as it was and why would you ever want to change it?

I think being interested is really what being civilized is about. I mean, you have to be conscious of everything.

There's a double standard between writers and readers. Readers can be unfaithful to writers anytime they like, but writers must never ever be unfaithful to the readers.

I have painted enough to have a lot of respect for mediocre painters. It's really hard.

Art teachers are always the doormats of the previous generation.