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

The artist is a strange being. I think it's safe to say that a real artist is conscious of having a personal singularity that is partly a blessing and partly a curse. An artist enjoys and suffers from isolation. As solitude, isolation can nurture. It can also destroy.

It's possible I am the only art critic that a lot of people read. And maybe Robert Hughes, if he's still writing.

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

I'm absolutely convinced that people cannot look and read at the same time. Not any more than you can kneel and jump at the same time. It's a completely different physiological setting.

Black and white can show how something is. Color adds how it is, imbued with temperatures and humidities of experience.

Your medium has to be alive to you, no matter what you do.