Life is one long decay, no? There's a lot of beauty in it. Like the patina in an old city.

I think when tattoos are new and colorful, they look bad. But they look better the older and more bleached out they become.

Take a relief. You draw it, you carve it out. Later you build it up from a flat surface. There is no other way to do a sculpture - you either add or you subtract.

Everybody I knew who was really ambitious and kind of annoying wanted to move to New York. I like it here but that has nothing to do with the fantasy image that goes along with it. You have so many people complaining, "It's not how it used to be." If you look for specific things and you don't find them anymore, that's disappointing. But that's just your disappointment, it has nothing to do with the city. I think it's a nice place-harsh at times, and so on, but beautiful nonetheless.

What is the art world? I never really understood. I started doing this stuff to do what I want to do. Not to be this or that.

I love seeing tattoos on 60-year-olds who have had them for 40 years.

If you don't enjoy making work, then it's bad. It's rough. Artwork is brutal for so many people. They let it happen to them, but it's brutal. I like the idea of an artist as somebody who works. A lot of the artists I like share this understanding.