I'm not particularly interested in painting, per se. I'm interested in a painting that has that mysterious life to it. Anything that doesn't partake of that magic is halfway dead - it returns to its physical elements, it's just paint and canvas.
All roads for me lead back to Mozart. In his tragically short life, he breathed new life, fire and meaning into every form of music that existed in his time.
When I left the Royal College, I decided I would only make paintings that I would want to look at myself, that felt close to my life.
Once you start playing a piece, there is a connection between every note. You cannot say, 'I will not concentrate on this note.' You cannot ignore things the way you do in the rest of your life.
I'm not an Expressionist. I love to look at de Kooning, but I've got this kind of secret life, and that is something that pleases me. I have to try and make something out of it.
I have been black and blue in some spot, somewhere, almost all my life from too intimate contacts with my own furniture.
Politicians are nauseating by definition... They can produce nothing, neither a loaf of bread nor a table nor a picture; and this inability to create value, this total inferiority, makes them jealous, vengeful, insolent and a menace to life and limb.
I think the younger generation, the people poised to dominate the workforce, are more socially conscious. They are more demanding in terms of environment and how that environment contributes to their life.
Many of the artists who have represented Negro life have seen only the comic, ludicrous side of it, and have lacked sympathy with and appreciation for the warm big heart that dwells within such a rough exterior.
My iPhone has changed my life - I spend hours taking photos of the sidewalk as I walk down the street. I like the casualness, that it's low-resolution.
I never saw anything more like real warfare in my life - only the attack was all on one side. The police, in spite of their numbers, apparently thought they could not cope with the crowd.
Life is very short... but I would like to live four times and if I could, I would set out to do no other things than I am seeking now to do.
I love going to conventions, and I love spending time with the fans and going to parts of the world where I wouldn't normally go.
There's a moment of recognition. It's that white-light kind of stuff that just 'works.' I love that. And you know it when it happens, whether it's a movie, music, a building, a book.
As for the symphonic activities... when I was a student at the Eastman School of Music, I became exposed to a lot more musical forms, elements, opportunities, and I fell in love with strings and their uses.
I love my sculptures, and I was lucky I had them for 50 years because no one would look at them, and I really liked having them around.
Throughout the time in which I am working on a canvas I can feel how I am beginning to love it, with that love which is born of slow comprehension.
He has no talent at all, that boy! You, who are his friend, tell him, please, to give up painting. –--Manet to Monet, on Renoir---
I enjoy sharing my books as I do my friends, asking only that you treat them well and see them safely home.
I'm one of the boys, no better than the last second violinist. I'm just the lucky one to be standing in the center, telling them how to play.
I think little things are more powerful because they're more honest, so people feel them more strongly.
