Landscape is to American painting what sex and psychoanalysis are to the American novel.

On the whole, money does artists much more good than harm. The idea that one benefits from cold water, crusts and debt collectors is now almost extinct, like belief in the reformatory power of flogging.

It was van Gogh's madness that prevented him from working; the paintings themselves are ineffably sane, if sanity is to be defined in terms of exact judgment of ends and means and the power of visual analysis.

What strip mining is to nature the art market has become to culture.

The new job of art is to sit on the wall and get more expensive.

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt; perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.

It is the nature of carnivores to get power and then, having disposed of their enemies, to deploy the emollient powers of Great Art to make themselves look like herbivores.