My art is about paying attention - about the extremely dangerous possibility that you might be art.

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

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.

Understanding is a form of blindness. Good art, I think, can never be understood.

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 don't like masterpieces having one-night stands in collectors' homes between auctions.

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.