Words have very potent meanings and people read them and they react to them personally. They are very suggestive in terms of your life and things like that.

I relied mainly on other artists, who I think are smarter than critics, any critics or curators or anybody like that. They really know.

The only problems I sometimes have is if I ask for a piece for a group show, if I ask for a piece - I would like to put it into a show, sometimes the collectors get possessive about it and don't want to let something happen. Say you get full credit, you know. You give them your name, the catalog and it always enhances the value of the piece, you know, the more shows it is in, blah, blah, blah.

And yes, there are things I want to keep, that I like around me - especially when there's very little left. I just want to keep those little bits of reminders of my past. There are certain drawings from the '60s; certain little paintings from the '60s that I keep.

I like contrasting between black and white and color.

Heidegger wrote a book called Was Ist Das Ding - What Is a Thing? which was kind of interesting and influential to me, as a matter of fact. It's a small paperback, which I read. It's about the nature of thingness; what is it? It's a very penetrating analysis of that, and I think a rather influential book. I know other artists who have read it and come up with it.

I am a very lucky artist in the sense that I have had all my life a lot of opportunities to do what I want to do.