I don't think you can lightly paint a picture. It's an activity I take very seriously.

I don't really have a historical overview of my work at all. I'm not an art historian. I don't see that there's this period and that period.

I find old copies of National Gallery catalogues, which are written in the dryest possible prose, infinitely soothing.

In England, it's thought to be morally suspect to worry about what your surroundings look like.

I look at my pictures, and I think, 'Well, how did I do that?'

I don't think you can lightly paint a picture. It's an activity I take very seriously.

I fell through a crack for years. Historically, I am a nothing because I fit in no category. I can only be me.

Collecting has been my great extravagance. It's a way of being. I collect for the same reason that I eat too much-I'm one of nature's shoppers.

My friends tend to be writers. I think writers and painters are really all the same-we just sit in our rooms.

When I finish a painting, it usually looks as surprising to me as to anyone else.

I think that words are often extraneous to what I do.

I once was interviewed and got so exasperated that I said, 'What do you want, a shopping list?' They kept asking, 'What's in this picture?'

Matisse was very clear about saying that you have to blow your own trumpet and explain yourself, which I think has been slightly forgotten.

I'm vulnerable to criticism. Any artist is, because you work alone in your studio and, until recently, critics were the only way you'd get any feedback.

A painting is finished when the subject comes back, when what has caused the painting to be made comes back as an object.

I'm very envious of the few artists who are any good and still do portraits.

I want my pictures to be things. I want them to be made up of marks that are physically and individually self-sufficient.

I think words come between the spectator and the picture.

The picture surface recedes just as much in the 20th century as it did in the 15th. The techniques of making pictures have hardly changed.

A collection makes its own demands. Many artists have been collectors. I think of it rather as an illness. I felt it was using up too much energy.

I hate painting.

I don't look at the work of my contemporaries very much; I tend to look at pictures by dead artists. It's much easier to get near their paintings.

You keep on balancing and balancing and balancing until the picture wins, because then the subject's turned into the picture.

In the United States there has been a kind of a structure in the Modern art world. The New York School was nearly a coherent thing-for a minute.

I am happy for people to talk about my pictures, but I wish devoutly that I was not expected to talk about them myself.

My language is what I use, and if I lost that, I wouldn't be able to say anything.

I am isolated as an artist, not as a person.

I think and that is all that I am.

The limitless content of our universe might be only one instance of a large (and possibly infinite) number of other universes.

Murder is an offensive act. The term cannot be applied legitimately to any defensive act.

For those who believe no proof is necessary. For those who dont believe no proof is possible.

The destruction of our environment and resources cannot be stemmed unless the growth of the world's population is stemmed and ultimately reduced.

The best defense is a confusing offense.

I didn't want to be a 'Fortune' writer who was constrained in any way.

Love is like bubble gum. At first it tastes better than anything you could ever imagine but after a while it starts loosing its flavor.

I suffer from an amazing amount of insecurities, and I'm grateful that my body image, it's normally not something I pay attention to.

I started writing it the day after Sept. 11. I was living in New York City. We didn't have any phone service and we didn't have any mail. Like a lot of writers do, I started to write in a voice that I missed.

Any urbanist has to appreciate New York City and the way it works. The public transit is astonishing.

In school, I studied psychology, linguistics, neuroscience. I understand that there is a real lack of respect for the brain.

I left Beijing in 1987, shortly before my books were banned there, but have returned continually.

What position didn't I play last season?

Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer

It might sound dramatic and a little grandiose, but as a Latina, I would like to be someone that gives a voice to my culture.

It doesn't take many observations to think you've spotted a trend, and it's probably not a trend at all.

I want a family someday and I know that I have to let love in to create that and I think there is someone out there for me, but I'm not on some crazy hunt for that right now.

There's to be a film about my life. I can give this as an exclusive now. Meryl Streep was offered the part but, no, I wanted Kate Winslet. Kylie Minogue is playing me in middle age. In old age, I'm not sure who's going to play me. I haven't got there yet. Perhaps Cate Blanchett. Or Jacki Weaver.

I was hooked on aviation, made model airplanes, and never thought I would be able to fly myself. It cost too much. But then World War II came along and changed all that.

You must take the compromise to win, or else nothing. That means: you race or you do not.

I'm 30; I don't have any commitments, and there are great parts out there that I want to play.