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.

It's interesting, because as a musician, I don't feel like I need to be on the top of the pop charts.

I want truth. I'm crying out to hear it. I need it like oxygen.

The past has no power over the present moment.

What makes a weightlifting program successful? Your hard work and dedication.

You can't reinvent the wheel. I remember when we first started out at 'Late Night,' we were trying to hire directors, and this guy was like, 'I see you behind a glass desk.' I don't. And he's like, 'Yeah, the glass desk.' I go, 'I don't really see me as a glass desk guy.'

If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery it would not seem so wonderful at all.

I think it's best if there's an amendment that goes on the ballot where the people can weigh in. Every time this issue has gone on the ballot, the people have voted to retain the traditional definition of marriage as recently as California in 2008.

You know, Mike Milken, the money that he has raised for cancer research has been remarkable.

Truth is, every writer has to be a good editor, and you have to edit yourself. It's a skill every writer has to acquire.

It was a pleasure to work with everybody at 'American Idol' and to be able to be part of the 'Idol' family.

I can't watch myself on TV.

Cute is one of those words people use when they know youre smart enough to realize youve got so much personality means youre ugly.

Every time I start a new novel, it seems like an impossible undertaking. If I tried to do too much too quickly, I would get lost and feel overwhelmed. I have to go slow, and give things a chance to take form and grow.

Technology is growing in all possible ways. It is affecting our lifestyle also.

I respect every gay man and woman. They're that way, and they just want to be happy.

His heritage to his children wasnt words or possessions but an unspoken treasure the treasure of his example as a man and a father.

You are not the troubles that happen to you. You are magnificence unfolding. Allow it to happen.

However, the combination of civil resistance, of large-scale mass activities and strikes, with a certain degree of revolutionary violence, could provoke a crisis in the enemy's camp that would ultimately lead to essential changes.

It would be great to do another television show that was a multi-camera because the hours are so wonderful and you can be a good mom at the same time. The problem is, there aren't a lot of multi-camera shows that I personally like. My aesthetic is more geared toward single-camera shows.

My imagination was a great place to escape from all the anxiety and disapproval of my life... I had to live in my head... art was a way of making myself feel better.

God's love is unbounded. It has no limits.

I feel so lucky to have been in a group where it was a real band. This wasn't a singer and guitar player and some other guys.