One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting. But if one lacks this passionate commitment, there is nothing left to do. Then it is best to leave it alone.

I've not been cursed with talent, which could be a great inhibitor.

Success is a worn down pencil.

There was a whole language that I could never make function for myself in relationship to painting, and that was attitudes like tortured, struggle, pain.

By the time you establish your priorities, there really isn't any fun or need to interest yourself in what you're doing. And this I find disastrous.

While my classmates were reading their textbooks, I drew in the margins.

For the first time, I wasn't embarrassed by the look of beauty, of elegance, because when you see someone who has only one rag as their property, but it happens to be beautiful and pink and silk, beauty doesn't have to be separated... I have always said that you shouldn't have biases, you shouldn't have prejudices. But before that [before his trip to India, circa 1975] I'd never been able to use purple, because it was too beautiful.