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.

I'm sure we don't read old paintings the way they were intended

Work is my joy... Work is my therapy, I don't know anybody who loves work as much as I do.

You wait until life is in the frame, then you have the permission to click. I like the adventure of waiting until the whole frame is full.

Photography is the most direct communication in non-violent contacts.

You can't make either life or art, you have to work in the hole in between, which is undefined. That's what makes the adventure of painting.

I used to think of that line in Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl', about the 'sad cup of coffee'.. ..I have had cold coffee and hot coffee and lousy coffee, But I've never had a sad cup of coffee.