Picasso had nicknamed Georges Braque "Wilbur," thereby becoming "Orville" in their Wright Brothers-like ambition to get painting off the ground of conventional representation.

With art criticism it's difficult to discuss beauty, to assess it, because there's always the possibility that we're insane.

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.

Everybody's got plants, but most are just growing weeds. The cultivated have greater gardens, finer and gaudier gardens.

For Rembrandt, reality is role-playing.... Everyone is portrayed in relation to a social hierarchy.

There's art that I would readily buy if I could afford it, and enjoy, but would never write about because it doesn't seem significant.

It's my duty to sell the ideas. But there's always a question when it comes to beauty.