Art is a means to function thoroughly and passionately in a world that has a lot more to it than paint.

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.

But I was in awe of the painters; I mean I was new in New York, and I thought the painting that was going on here was just unbelievable

And also the new excitement and variety of ways that the abstract expressionists were applying paint. You could put it on as though it were colored air and it would be painting.

I always have a good reason for taking something out but I never have one for putting something in. And I don't want to, because that means that the picture is being painted predigested.

Screwing things up is a virtue. Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanatically correct assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, I can't read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.

This was my first encounter with art as art (he saw 'Pinky' painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence and 'The Blue Boy" painted by Thomas Gainborough).. ..somebody actually MADE those paintings.. ..(it) was the first time I realized you could be an artist.